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LITTLE MITCHELL 

THE STORY OF A MOUNTAIN SQUIRREL 




Little Mitchell has his Picture Taken 

(Page]G4) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 



THE STORY 
OF A MOUNTAIN SQUIRREL 



BY 



MARGARET W. MORLEY 

Author op " A Song of Life," " The Bee People/ 
etc. 



Illustrations by Bruce Horsfall 




■ 



CHICAGO 
A. C. McCLURG & CO. 

1904 




LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Gopies Received 
MAY 2 1904 
Copyright Entry 

CLAS$ A- XXc. No. 



COPY B 



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Copyright 

A. C. McClurg & Co. 

1904 

Published April 2, 1904 



THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

I Little Mitchell's Lady comes ... 13 

II Little Mitchell is found, and takes 

a Strange Journey 32 

III Little Mitchell's First Ride, and how 

he and his Lady get Home ... 54 

IV Little Mitchell's Cat Neighbors . . 78 

V Little Mitchell starts out to see the 

World 97 

VI Little Mitchell refuses to leave his 

Lady 115 

VII Little Mitchell's First Car-ride . . 139 

VIII Little Mitchell goes to Boston . . 152 

IX Little Mitchell's Happy Days . . . 172 

X Little Mitchell makes a Mistake . 194 

XI Little Mitchell goes to Sleep . . . 215 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Page / 



Little Mitchell has his Picture Taken . . Frontispiece 

Little Mitchell's First Home 15 

"A squirrel's nest, in a nice hole, high up in the crotch of a tall 
chestnut tree." 

The Log Schoolhouse 29 

"The schoolhouse stood on the bank of a little river." 

Little Mitchell's First Meal 37 

"The Lady dipped the end of her finger in the milk and put it in 
Little Mitchell's mouth." 

Little Mitchell Cries for More 47 

"He had squirmed out of the blanket." 

Little Mitchell in his Lady's Cap „ 59 

" All curled up in a little round ball in his lady's cap." 

Little Mitchell Warming- Himself 69 

" He would flatten himself out and warm the under side of his 
body before the fire." 

Little Mitchell's First Chestnut . 75 

" He took it in his baby hands, and sat up, and looked around, 
very wise indeed." 

Little Mitchell Washes his Face 87 

" Out there in the corn-field he climbed quickly up to her shoul- 
der, and sat there and washed his face with his little hands." 

Little Mitchell Likes Chinkapins 95 

" He sat on the Lady's knee and cracked chinkapins, and would 
give the shells a toss that sent them far away." 

Little Mitchell on a Frolic 107 

" Hop, hop, went Little Mitchell, all up and down the room." 

Little Mitchell in his Box 119 

"There he lay on his back, like a hot, tired, human little baby." 



U 



f 

x ILLUSTRATIONS 

Page 
Little Mitchell's Visitor . . . 131 

" He scampered off as if the old cat were after him." 

Little Mitchell and his Wheel „ . 143 

" As soon as he moved the wheel began to turn, and he began 
to run." 

Little Mitchell Plats with his Tail 155 

" It was funny to see him hanging by his hind toes from his screen, 
head downward, and play with his tail." 

Little Mitchell Plats with a String 169 

"Across the room and back again he would chase it." 

Little Mitchell Sits in his Chair 181 

" He sat in the doll's chair before the little table, and ate his 
supper." 

Little Mitchell Listens to the Whistle .... 189 

" He would climb up on the screen, and there he would stay, as 
still as a mouse." 



LITTLE MITCHELL 



f 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

THE STORY OF A 
MOUNTAIN SQUIRREL 



LITTLE MITCHELL'S LADY COMES 

Xjaby Mitchell was an August 
squirrel. That is, he was born in the 
month of August. His pretty gray 
mother found a nice hole, high up in 
the crotch of a tall chestnut tree, for 
her babies' nest; and I know she 
lined it with soft fur plucked from 
her own loving little breast, — for that 
is the way the squirrel mothers do. 

This chestnut tree grew on the side 
of a steep mountain, — none other than 
Mount Mitchell, the highest mountain 
peak in all the eastern half of the 
United States. It is in North Carolina, 
where there are a great many beautiful 

13 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

mountains, but none of them more 
beautiful than Mount Mitchell, with 
the great forest trees on its slopes. 

One of these forest trees was the 
big chestnut where Baby Mitchell was 
born. In the warm and lovely summer 
he lay safe in his snug nest twenty 
feet above the ground. 

How many little brothers and sisters 
there were, I do not know, for a very 
sad thing happened, and all of them 
died but Little Mitchell. I must tell 
you what this sad thing was that hap- 
pened to the little squirrels. 

There was a small log-cabin at the 
foot of the mountain, and here lived 
a father and mother and a very large 
family of very small children. There 
was no other house near; and the 
father had to go a great many miles 
through the woods to his work in a 
saw-mill that some one had set up in 
the mountains. 

14 




Little Mitchell's First Home 

"A squirrel's nest, in a nice hole, high up in the crotch of 

tall chestnut tree." (Page 13) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

And the children had to go such a 
long way to school, over little rivers 
that they crossed on narrow foot-logs ; 
and through deep shady woods, where 
the sun could scarcely send a ray down 
through the tops of the tall trees ; and 
under tangled rhododendron bushes 
that were often like little trees they 
were so large, and in the summer time 
were covered with masses of splendid 
white flowers. 

Yes, it was a beautiful forest, though 
it was very, very wild ; but there were 
no dangerous animals to hurt the chil- 
dren, excepting once in a while a long 
rattlesnake that wiggled out of the way 
as fast as it could if anybody came 
along. 

The children loved their forest home, 
and they could run across the foot-logs 
without slipping into the little rivers, 
for they had no shoes, and their pretty 
bare feet had learned to cling to what- 

16 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

ever they touched, like the feet of the 
wild animals, and they, you know, 
never tumble down or slip on a log. 

When the children had run across 
the foot-logs, and danced through the 
dark woods, and skipped along under 
the rhododendrons far enough, they 
came to the schoolhouse. 

You would be surprised to see this 
schoolhouse, for it was only a little 
log-hut with one room ; and the seats 
were just rough benches, and there 
were no desks and no blackboards. 

The schoolhouse stood on the bank 
of a little river ; and all the children 
who lived "yon side" the river, as 
they say there, had to come to school 
over a long and narrow foot-log. But 
this log had a railing to hold on by, 
and the children did not mind going 
over it any more than you mind walk- 
ing on the sidewalk. You see, they 
had their bare feet to cling with. 

2 17 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

But they did not have to cross the 
log to go to the schoolhouse very 
often, for it is almost always " vaca- 
tion" in the mountains. Sometimes 
the children go to school three months 
in the year, but very often there is 
school for only six weeks at a time. 
So they have to make the most of 
the good times, when they all meet 
together, and play with each other, 
and learn to read a little. 

It would be fun to tell you about 
the little girls who came from ever 
so far, barefooted and sunbonneted, 
and the little boys who came from 
ever so far, barefooted with ragged 
caps on their heads, to this queer 
school. And it would be fun to tell 
of what they did in school, and of 
the sport they had at recess, playing 
in the river that ran so close to the 
schoolhouse door, and in the woods, 
all full of wild flowers, where the 

18 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

rabbits scampered under the trees, 
showing nothing but a tuft of white 
down which was their tail. But up 
in the trees gray squirrels ran about, 
with tails all big and bushy, and not 
white at all. It would be fun to tell 
about these things, — but there is 
little Baby Mitchell waiting for us up 
in the top of the chestnut tree, and we 
must hurry and take him down. 

But first we must go back to the 
little log-cabin at the foot of the 
mountain, and wait for the lady to 
come along ; because, you see, the story 
all turns on the coming of the lady. 

One August day, toward night, 
when it began to get very cool at 
the foot of the high mountain, the 
mother of the little children who lived 
in the log-cabin was very much as- 
tonished. The little children were 
very much astonished too. The dog 
was so astonished that he forgot to 

19 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

bark ; and the very cabbages and 
cornstalks that grew in the clearing 
in front of the cabin no doubt were 
also very much astonished. 

Such a thing had never happened 
before ; for coming along the path out 
of the woods were two strangers, — a 
lady from away off, and a mountain 
man who was acting as her guide. 

The lady, on her part, was very 
much astonished too. She wanted to 
climb to the top of Mount Mitchell ; 
and somebody had told somebody who 
had told her that the shortest way up 
was from a house at the foot, on the 
east side of the mountain, and that this 
house was a little hotel where strangers 
usually went to spend the night before 
starting up the high mountain. 

So the lady came from away off, 
until she got within a few miles of the 
foot of the high mountain. Here she 
spent the night in a farmhouse, and 

20 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

next morning took a mountain man 
for a guide, who said he knew the 
way ; and they started to walk to the 
little hotel, which she found was no 
hotel at all, but only the tiny log-cabin 
where the father and mother and their 
children lived. 

The lady had to walk, because that 
was the only way to get there. There 
was no road through the forest, only a 
narrow path that went waggling along 
over rocks and rivers and tangly tree- 
roots, and nobody but a mountaineer 
could have found it. The lady fol- 
lowed her guide miles and miles, and 
would have felt very tired, only the 
air is so refreshing up by the big moun- 
tain that you cannot feel very tired, not 
if you walk ever so far. 

The lady wore shoes, of course, and 
she could not get through the woods 
and over the foot-logs as easily as the 
little barefooted children. But at last, 

21 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

just before dark, they crossed one more 
stream over a particularly small and 
wabbly foot-log, and there they were. 

" That is the house," said the guide, 
as they came out into the clearing 
where the cabbages and corn-stalks 
were growing. 

" Where ? " said the lady. 

" There," said the guide, pointing to 
the cabin. 

It was then that the lady felt very 
much astonished. 

Ladies always feel very much aston- 
ished in these mountains, because 
nothing ever turns out as they expect. 

This lady had expected to find a 
little hotel, you remember. 

But where is Baby Mitchell all this 
time ? you are asking. 

Oh, he is safe enough yet. Nothing 
at all has happened to him, and you 
must wait patiently until it is time for 
something to happen. 

22 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

The lady is very tired, remember, — 
or at least as tired as anybody can be 
in that enchanted forest ; and she is 
hungry, and must have her supper. 

When the mother of the little chil- 
dren saw the lady coming, she was 
glad as well as astonished, and ran to 
meet her. 

"Law me! You must be plumb 
tired out," she said. " Come right along 
in, and set down and rest yourself. We 
hain't got much, but what we have got 
you 're welcome to." 

That is the way the mountain people 
always talk. Their grammar is all 
wrong, but their hearts are all right, — 
and a good heart is worth a great deal 
more than good grammar; don't you 
think so ? 

So the lady went in. There was 
nothing else to do. She could n't pos- 
sibly have gone back all that way 
through the forest and across the 

23 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

rivers at night, you know. And 
though the log-house was so small 
and so crowded, she felt that she was 
not in the way, the mother and all the 
little children looked so friendly at her. 

She was quite a wonderful lady, — 
or at least so thought that family in 
the woods ; for while the little chil- 
dren stood looking at her, what do 
you think? 

There she sat — with a doll in her 
hands ! 

It was a little doll, but it had real 
hair, and when you laid it down it 
shut its eyes. 

The little children who lived in the 
cabin had never seen a doll in their 
long lives before, — never. 

But they knew right away what it 

was for. So did the lady. She knew 

very well it was meant for children to 

play with ; and presently she laid it 

in the arms of one of the little girls. 
24 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

And the little girl grabbed it tight 
in both hands, as if she were afraid 
it would run away. Then she laid 
it up over her shoulder, with its curly 
head in the hollow of her neck, just 
as her mother held the baby, and she 
patted it softly with a gentle motherly 
touch of her chubby little hand, and, 
oh, how her eyes did shine! 

Then, wonder of wonders ! — there 
was another doll in the lady's hand, 
and she put it into the arms of an- 
other little girl ; and still another doll 
came out of her pocket, or somewhere, 
for the third little girl ; and the three 
dolls were all as much alike as two 
peas. 

It was all wonderful. The three 
little girls would have thought Christ- 
mas had come in the middle of the 
summer, if they had known anything 
about Christmas, which they did not. 
Yet they were very good and pretty 

25 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

little girls, and they had lovely rivers 
to play in, and a great splendid moun- 
tain to look at all their lives. 

Of course there were some boys, — 
three of them ; and they were about 
as much interested in the wonderful 
dolls as were their little sisters. That 
is, they were until the lady took out 
of the bag which the guide carried 
a new jack-knife with two shiny 
blades ; then the boys' eyes got very 
shiny too. None of them had ever 
owned a knife. Their father had one, 
and when he was at home the boys 
used to borrow it to whittle the ends 
of sticks into brushes to kindle the 
fire with ; for there was never a scrap 
of paper with which to start a fire. 

You can imagine how those three 
boys felt when the lady gave each of 
them a new knife ! You can imagine 
how they felt, I say ; but they could 
not have told you. They really did n't 

26 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

know themselves ; for they had never 
felt that way before. 

What are you asking ? — are we 
never coming to Little Mitchell 1 

Yes ; but we must have supper first. 

What has supper to do with it ? 

Oh, everything. For now that the 
lady is found, the whole story turns 
on the supper. 

If it hadn't been for the supper, 
the lady would not have found Little 
Mitchell, and you would never have 
known a thing about him. 

You see, the people who lived in 
the cabin had nothing to eat but corn- 
pone, which is a kind of coarse corn- 
bread baked in the ashes ; for they 
had no stove, — nothing but a big 
stone fireplace to do their cooking in. 

There was nothing but corn-pone 
and fried cabbage there to eat. So 
when the lady came, the father took 
his gun (he had just got home from 

27 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

the saw-mill) and went out to get 
some meat for supper. 

After a little while he came back with 
a large gray squirrel ; and pretty soon 
they all had a nice hot supper of corn- 
pone, fried cabbage, and squirrel-pie. 

Now squirrel-pie is really no worse 
than chicken-pie or veal-pie or mut- 
ton-pie ; but it sounds worse. And of 
course nobody knew that the squirrel 
that went into the pie was a poor little 
mother bunny with a nestful of young 
babies. 

I should like to tell you how the 
lady spent the night in the log-cabin, 
which had only two rooms for its 
eleven occupants, counting the lady 
and her guide who were not expected, 
and not counting the very littlest 
baby and the next biggest baby and 
the three-year old baby, who were all 
tucked away somewhere — under one 
of the beds, I think — before supper. 

28 




The Log Schoolhotjse' 
"The schoolhouse stood on the bank of a little river." (Page 17) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

I say I should like to tell you about 
that strange night ; only, of course, you 
would not listen, with Baby Mitchell 
waiting up in his tree to be rescued. 

But I must say that many rooms do 
not make kinder hearts or better man- 
ners than the lady found in those two 
crowded little rooms of the log-house. 

The lady was not used to living as 
her new friends had to live, and she 
could not get used to it in time to go 
to sleep that night. So when morning 
came she should have felt very tired 
after the long walk of the day before 
and the sleepless night. But, remem- 
ber, she was in an enchanted forest, — 
that is, it seemed to have enchanted 
air, for the moment she got out in 
the morning and breathed deep of the 
pure high air she felt as fresh as she 
ever felt in her life. 

And the school-teacher did look so 
fresh and pretty ! 

30 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

Who was the school-teacher ? 

Why, she was just the school- 
teacher. She was young and pretty, 
and the little children loved her, and 
went to school every morning with her 
through the deep woods and over the 
many rivers. 

She lived at their house during 
term-time, and she had just come, for 
school was to begin the next Monday. 
Her own home was in another part of 
the mountains. 

When the lady asked her how she 
liked living out in this wild and lonely 
place, and teaching in the wild and 
lonely schoolhouse, she smiled until 
her pretty white teeth showed, and 
said, — 

"Oh,- 1 like it splendid." 

So you see the little children had 
good reason to love her. 



31 



II 



LITTLE MITCHELL IS FOUND, AND 
TAKES A STRANGE JOURNEY 

W HEN the little gray bunny mother 
did not come home, the babies in the 
crotch of the old chestnut tree got 
very hungry, and I am sure they cried 
all night. 

No doubt they were cold too, for 
they had no little furry mother to curl 
herself about them and keep them 
warm. Poor babies ! I suppose they 
cuddled as close together as they could, 
and cried and cried, and wondered why 
mother did not come home and take 
care of them. 

At last, when morning came, the 
strongest one — that was our Little 
Mitchell, you know — felt so desperate 

32 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

that, although he was only two or three 
days old and had not got his eyes open 
yet, he climbed up to the crotch of the 
tree to find out what he could. 

All he felt was the cold keen air of 
the early morning ; and then, being all 
confused, I suppose, and not knowing 
how high he was from the ground, — 
for his eyes were tight shut, remember, 
— he tried to walk out into space, and 
down he fell, — not to the ground, oh 
dear, no ! If he had fallen to the 
ground he would have been killed, and 
this story would never have been told. 

When he felt himself falling, he 
caught at the tree-trunk with his little 
claws, and managed to get hold of a 
piece of loosened bark. Here he clung, 
terribly frightened, and crying like a 
little baby, — which, indeed, he was. 

Perhaps it was a good thing for him 
that his eyes were shut, for how fright- 
ened he would have been to look down 

3 33 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

and see the earth so far below him ! — 
such a cold, unfriendly earth, too, with 
nothing on it for a baby squirrel to eat. 

I do not know how long he had been 
clinging there and crying before the 
lady came. For now it is time for his 
lady to come along, and when she once 
comes Little Mitchell will be in the 
story every minute until it ends. 

You see, as soon as breakfast was 
over and they had all eaten all the 
hot corn-pone and fried cabbage they 
wanted, the lady was ready to start up 
the mountain. 

The little children and their mother 
and the school-teacher were sorry to 
see the lady go, and the father looked 
anxious, — for Mount Mitchell is a very 
wild mountain and a very big one, and 
he was afraid they would get lost. He 
offered to go and show them ; but the 
guide said no, he knew the way. 

So the lady and her guide started on 

34 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

up the mountain in the cold morning 
air, and it became so steep right away 
that the lady had to keep stopping to 
get her breath. 

It was while she was stopping to 
breathe that the guide said, — 

" Listen! I hear a boomer, and I 
would like to get to see it." 

" Boomer " is their name for the little 
red squirrel, of which the mountaineers 
are very fond, and which is not nearly 
so common there as the big gray squir- 
rel. The people who live down below 
call the mountain people " mountain 
boomers," — why, I do not know, un- 
less perhaps they think they live in the 
mountains like squirrels. 

Well, the guide began to look around 

to find the boomer, and the lady looked 

around too, and at last they spied a 

little squirrel clinging to the bark of 

a tall chestnut tree, twenty feet from 

the ground, and crying very hard. 
35 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

They soon found that it was no 
boomer, but a tiny gray squirrel. The 
guide threw up small sticks and bits of 
bark to make him run ; but he did not 
stir, even when a bit of bark hit his 
tail. 

Then said the guide, "I'm going up 
to get him." 

So up the tree he went, clinging 
with arms and knees, for the tree- 
trunk was so big his arms could not 
reach half-way around it. 

It was a very hard climb, but the 
man got there at last, and, catching 
the little fellow by the tail, came 
sliding down, the little squirrel squeak- 
ing frantically, for it was both fright- 
ened and hurt at being handled in 
that rough way. Its own little bunny 
mother never picked it up by the tail, 
you know. 

The man put the little fellow in the 
lady's hand, and, to her surprise, she 

36 




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LITTLE MITCHELL 

saw it was a young gray squirrel with 
its eyes not yet open. 

And now you know it was Little 
Mitchell, who had fallen out of his 
nest and was lying there in the lady's 
hand. 

Such a funny little fellow as he 
was ! — all head and feet, with almost 
no body at all, and a queer little stub 
of a tail that was hardly as long as his 
queer little body. 

The lady laughed when she saw 
him, and then she felt very sorry for 
the helpless little one. 

What could she do with him ? She 
could not lay him down on the cold 
mountain and go away and leave him. 
And yet he must just as surely die if 
she took him, she thought, for she had 
nothing with which to feed him. 

He nosed around in her hand in 
such a comical, helpless way, not cry- 
ing now, but whimpering like a very 

38 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

tired, worn-out little baby, — which, 
you know, is just what he was. 

Finally the lady started on with 
him in her hand ; but he squirmed and 
whimpered so, she soon grew tired 
of holding him — and then, what do 
you think she did? 

She had on a warm flannel waist 
with a soft loose belt, and into the 
waist she tucked him. In a moment 
he had worked his way down under the 
belt, where he snuggled up, stopped 
crying, and went fast asleep. 

You see, he was almost dead from 
cold and weariness. 

On went the lady, slowly climbing 
up the steep mountain ; and the 
wonder is that Little Mitchell was 
not squeezed to death under her belt. 
But he slept on. 

On through the great chestnut for- 
est went the lady and her guide, — on 

past the handsome tulip trees, the 
39 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

great oaks, and all kinds of beautiful 
forest trees. 

The sun grew hot on the mountain 
side, and the air became soft and 
hazy, — a little too soft and hazy for 
safety on that wild mountain, where 
storms ride swiftly up like witches 
from nowhere. 

But on and up they went, until they 
came out of the forest to a wide slop- 
ing pasture, — a " bald" they call such 
open places on the mountains. 

Here they found the ground covered 
thick with grass and flowers, and a 
herd of cattle grazing. These half- 
wild cattle raised their heads as the 
lady and her guide came out of the 
forest into their pasture, and some of 
them shook their long horns and 
began to step nearer. But the guide 
shouted and waved a big stick at 
them, and they went off. 

And Baby Mitchell slept on. 

40 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

When they were half-way across 
the " bald " that sloped gently upward, 
the lady turned around and looked 
back over the tree-tops. 

It was a wonderful view. 

Below was the valley where stood 
the log-cabin ; but she could not see 
the cabin, it was so close under the 
mountain ; and the valley itself looked 
like a slit, it was so deep and narrow. 

And now you know why the night 
came on so soon, and why the morn- 
ing sun was so long in shining down 
into the cabbage patch. The valley 
was so deep and narrow that the sun 
could not look into it until it was high 
up in the sky. 

Across the narrow valley, and right 
in front, was a splendid tree-covered 
spur of the Blue Ridge mountains; 
and off a little to the left was the 
queer-looking Table Mountain, stuck 
up like a big hat set on the head 

41 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

of a mountain. Beyond were billows 
upon billows of mountains ; and be- 
yond them, far off in the distance, the 
lowlands looked blue and level like 
the sea. 

The lady stood several minutes 
looking at the grand and beautiful 
view, with Baby Mitchell fast asleep 
under her belt. Then she went on, 
and at last they got to the top of the 
"bald," and, with a last look back at 
the wide world below, the lady followed 
her guide on into the black fir forest. 

The black fir forest was very black 
indeed, and the fir trees towered up 
and up and up so high you could not 
see their tops, and so thick you could 
not see the sky through their branches. 
Oh, but it was dark under them ! — 
it was like walking under thousands 
of Christmas trees before the candles 
and presents have been put on ; only 
these trees were ten times as big as 

42 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

Christmas trees. They were balsam 
firs, the kind you get the sweet-smell- 
ing needles from to put into sofa 
pillows; only these were ten times 
as big as the balsam firs that grow 
in the North. But they smelled just as 
sweet as those, and all the forest was 
filled with the perfume of them. The 
ground was covered ankle deep with 
soft green moss that the lady's feet 
sank into as she walked. 

And everywhere were the rhododen- 
drons. It was too late for them to be 
in bloom; so they were not as lovely 
as they are sometimes. When you 
get into the rhododendrons, you cannot 
see up into the tree branches, because 
the rhododendron branches are tangled 
about you and above you with their 
stiff green leaves. They make the 
woods seem dreadfully black and 
gloomy ; but when they are in bloom 
it is another matter. 

43 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

The lady arid the guide went on 
and on under the twisted rhododen- 
drons, and Baby Mitchell lay fast 
asleep under the lady's belt. 

Then the guide lost the trail. 

It was, in fact, a great deal easier 
to lose it than to keep it. Indeed, 
it could hardly be called a trail at 
all, it was so little used, and one 
had to know the mountain very well 
indeed to get safely to the top. 

Such a wild and lovely forest as 
they found now, you never were in. 
I do not believe such balsam firs grow 
anywhere else in the world. Their 
dark green tops make the moun- 
tains look black, excepting when the 
air is hazy and makes them look 
faint and blue in the distance. But 
when the air is clear the mountains 
look black because of the fir trees 
that grow all the way up to their 
tops. 

u 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

And when anybody asks, you can 
tell them that is why the Black Moun- 
tains got their name; and Mount 
Mitchell, you know, is one of the 
Black Mountains, — the very highest 
one of all. 

Well, they lost the trail, the lady 
and her guide, and soon they had to 
creep on their hands and knees under 
the rhododendrons that twisted great 
tangly arms about them and tripped 
them up with roots that lay like giant 
snakes upon the ground. And then 
they came to awful precipices, and had 
to creep back again. And sometimes 
they had to climb over immense fallen 
logs, slippery with a deep coat of 
green moss. 

The lady remembered Baby Mitchell 
under her belt, and crept along as 
carefully as she could; yet it is a 
wonder he was n't squeezed to death. 
But he was a good tired baby, that 

45 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

said never a word, but slept on, warm 
and snug under the soft belt. 

It was hard work for the lady, and 
the air began to smell damp, and 
sweeter than ever, — the way it does 
before a rain. 

And now and then they would get 
glimpses through the forest to where 
was a deep gorge with a tremendous 
tree-clad spur beyond, and down into 
this gorge went pouring what looked 
like a river of white mist. 

The lady was frightened now, for 
she knew they were lost on the wild 
mountain, and that the white river she 
saw was the fog-clouds rolling in. 

The fog-clouds sometimes shut down 
on the mountains so thick and heavy 
that you cannot see your way at all; 
and then it is not safe to take so much 
as a step. 

But the guide struggled on as fast 
as he could, and would not own that 

46 




\ v 



Little Mitchell Cries for More 
l He had squirmed out of the blanket." (Page 62) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

they were lost, though his face was all 
drawn with fear of the wild cloud- 
covered mountain. 

At last they reached a little icy 
stream coming down the mountain and 
began to climb up its bed, not minding 
the cold water that soaked their feet. 
Then on they went as fast as they 
could struggle through the terrible 
forest, and just as they got to a trail 
that the guide knew would lead them 
to the top the rain began to fall and 
a cloud closed swiftly about them. 
But they were on the right path now, 
so they did not care for the creeping 
cloud. 

It was still a long, long walk to the 
top, — for one thing that always as- 
tonishes strangers who go to these 
mountains is the way distances stretch 
out. They tell you it is two miles 
to a place, and when you have gone 
two miles it is still two miles farther, 

48 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

— only sometimes when you have 
gone the two miles it is four more 
before you get there. 

Well, they got to the top at last, 
but by that time the rain was pouring 
and the clouds had settled down over 
everything. It was a terrible storm 
they were in, and so icy cold. 

But Little Mitchell slept on, — he 
was so very, very tired, you see, and 
then the lady had managed somehow 
to keep him dry and warm. 

You can see the whole world from 
the top of Mount Mitchell, — well, no, 
not really the whole world, but you 
know what I mean, — you can see so 
much it seems as if it must be the 
whole world ; and that is why the 
lady had wanted to go there. But 
for all she could see that day, she 
might as well have stayed at home. 

It is usually that way on Mount 
Mitchell. No matter how clear it is 

4 49 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

when you start, there is a watchful 
cloud that goes 'sneaking up after 
you, or else comes sneaking down 
from its hiding-place back of the sky 
as soon as you come, and the first 
thing you know it has folded itself 
down over the mountain-top and 
blotted out everything from sight. 

There is a cave on the top of Mount 
Mitchell, made by a large overhang- 
ing rock. People generally go up 
from the sensible side of the moun- 
tain, — which is not the side the lady 
went up, because she did n't know 
any better, you see. 

The people who go up from the 
sensible side take blankets and food 
on the backs of mules, and stay all 
night in the cave. That is good fun. 

But the lady had no blankets and 
no mule, — only a very tired guide, 
who was so tired because he got 
frightened on the mountain thinking 

50 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

he had lost the way, and a poor little 
hungry baby squirrel fast asleep under 
her belt. 

The lady looked into the cave, and 
what do you think she found 1 

A couch of balsam boughs ; but 
that does n't count. 

An old coffee-pot ; but that does n't 
count. 

A little can partly full of condensed 
milk; and that does count, — for, you 
see, it saved Baby Mitchell's life. 

Somebody had been camping there 
sometime, and had left the can of 
milk, and it had not turned sour be- 
cause it is so cold up there even in 
midsummer. 

While the guide was trying to make 
a fire out of wet sticks, the lady took 
Little Mitchell out from under her 
belt, — and a very limp baby he was 
by this time, for he was nearly starved 
to death, of course. 

51 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

She dipped the end of her finger 
in the milk and put it in Little 
Mitchell's mouth. Perhaps you think 
he would n't eat condensed milk. You 
should have seen him! He licked 
every bit from the lady's finger, and 
then cried for more. 

She fed him all she dared, — for 
when you are almost starved it is 
dangerous to eat too much at a time, 
you know. When she would give 
him no more, he cried very hard, — 
he was such a hungry baby, and the 
milk tasted so good. But pretty soon 
he quieted down and went fast asleep 
again, and was tucked back under 
the soft belt. 

The guide could not start a fire, — 
which shows he was not a " truly " 
guide, for a " truly " guide can make 
a fire out of icicles, you know. 

So, all wet and shivery, they sat 
in the cave and ate some lunch out 

52 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

of the lady's bag, which had been 
carried by the guide. 

They hardly dared to rest at all, 
for they had to get to the foot of 
the mountain before night ; so in a 
few minutes they started down. 



53 



Ill 



LITTLE MITCHELL'S FIRST RIDE, AND 
HOW HE AND HIS LADY GET HOME 

vyH, no, indeed! They didn't try- 
to go back the way they came up. 
They went down the sensible side 
of the mountain. The distance was 
more than twice as great, but there 
was a plain path all the way. 

But first they stopped a minute to 
look at the Mitchell monument. I 
must tell you about this. It is made 
of metal, and is fastened with four 
strong wire cables, to keep it from 
blowing down, — for there are terrible 
winds on the top of Mount Mitchell. 
The monument is placed over the 
grave of Dr. Mitchell, for whom the 
big mountain is named, because he 

54 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

loved it so, and went up to the top 
of it a great many times, and measured 
it to find out how high it is ; but one 
day the clouds came down, and he 
stayed so long that he got lost on 
his beautiful mountain, and died there. 

So the mountain was named after 
Dr. Mitchell; and Baby Mitchell, as 
you have guessed long before this, 
was named after the mountain, be- 
cause the lady found him on the side 
of it. 

Well, they started down in the rain, 
and the path was plain enough, for 
mules sometimes came up it as I have 
told you. But it was a hard path to 
walk in, for the roots of the big trees 
that grew so close together had come 
up out of the ground, as tree roots 
do, and had twisted about every- 
where. Sometimes it was like going 
down a flight of break-neck stairs, the 
path was so steep, and the twisted 

55 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

roots made the steps. Besides, there 
were deep holes full of water that your 
feet kept sinking down into. 

But in spite of all this, it was a 
beautiful forest. And soon the lady 
forgot how cold and tired she had 
been, and went along as happy as 
could be. You see, the forest was 
so lovely, all dripping wet, and the 
air was so fine, she had to feel happy. 
The dampness made the moss like 
king's velvet, so soft and deep and 
green. 

And the great fir trees towered high 
up toward the sky, and stood so close 
together there was scarcely room to 
pass between them ; and it was all 
dim and half dark, because of the 
trees overhead, and the cloud over 
the trees. 

After a while they got out of the 
firs into the briar patch ; and here 
the sun was trying to break through 

56 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

the clouds. And after the briar patch, 
where it was not so steep, they came 
into another kind of forest. 

They had got below the fir trees, 
and now went along under the broad- 
leaved oaks, and chestnuts, and lin- 
dens, and many other mountain 
trees. 

The path got smoother, excepting 
where they had to cross the beds of 
rocky streams, full and roaring from 
the rain. It wound back and forth 
on the mountain-side, and was not 
so steep, and the lady kept on feeling 
very happy, the forest was so lovely. 

At last they got down the mountain 
and came to a river that was hard to 
cross. It went rushing along, and 
they had to jump from rock to rock 
to get over. But they managed it, 
and then went on through more 
lovely woods, till they got to Mr. 
Dolph Wilson's house. 

57 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

This house had several rooms, and 
the Wilsons were used to having 
strangers come and stay with them 
on their way to or from the mountain. 
They had a mule named Belle, that 
had been up, — oh, I don't know how 
many times, — and she could walk in 
the holes between the tree roots on the 
steep part, and over the rocky beds of 
the streams, without tumbling down. 

As soon as the lady got into the 
house, she asked for some milk, which 
she warmed over the kitchen stove, 
not to drink herself, — oh dear, no, — 
but for the poor little baby squirrel 
that was lying all snuggled up asleep 
under her belt. 

At first he would not drink from the 
spoon ; it was hard and cold, and he 
did not know how to drink in that 
way. But presently he happened to 
get the edge of it in his mouth, and 
tasted the good warm milk. How he 

58 




Little Mitchell in his Lady's Cap 
" All curled up in a little round ball in his lady's cap." (Page 73) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

did drink it then ! He held the spoon 
between his lips, and drank just as 
you drink from a tumbler ; and I don't 
suppose anything in the world ever 
tasted better to any one than that 
milk did to Baby Mitchell. 

Then the lady took a piece of soft 
cloth for a blanket, and wrapped him 
up in it, and took him to her bedroom, 
where she put him to bed, and left 
him while she got warm and dry and 
had her supper. 

Do you want to know about his 
bed? 

Well, you see, the mountain people 
use feather-beds, and they have two 
or three beds in one room. That is 
the way they like to live, — a great 
many people together in one room. 

But the lady did not like this way, 
so she had a room to herself, with two 
big beds in it, and there was a thick 
feather-bed on each of them. She 

60 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

punched her fists down into one of 
the feather-beds until she had made 
quite a deep hole, and in this she 
buried Little Mitchell in his blanket. 

You see, young squirrels, like other 
babies, need to be kept warm. 

So Baby Mitchell had a whole 
feather-bed to himself that night, and 
he slept without a sound until the lady 
unrolled him the next morning. 

She hardly expected to find him 
alive, he was such a tender little thing 
to undergo such hardships. Starving, 
and sleeping under ladies' belts, and 
being carried in that way up a rough 
mountain and then down again, and 
fed on condensed milk and cow's 
milk, and put to sleep at last in a 
feather-bed, one would think would 
be enough to wear out any squirrel so 
young it could n't open its eyes. 

But it didn't wear out Baby 
Mitchell. 

61 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

When the lady unrolled him, there 
he was, as alive as could be and as 
warm as a kitten. She laughed when 
she saw him, he was so little and the 
bed so big ! 

As soon as she unrolled him, he 
lifted up his head, and then he opened 
his mouth and screamed for his break- 
fast. He was used to being cared for 
earlier in the morning, in his home in 
the tree, and he was starving hungry. 

The lady hurried to give him some 
warm milk, and when he had drunk it 
he went fast asleep right away, and she 
wrapped him up and put him in the 
feather-bed again, and went off. 

When she came back he had 
squirmed out of the blanket and was 
standing up as straight as he could on 
his funny little legs, and holding up 
his funny head, with his eyes still 
tight shut. And he was screaming at 
the top of his voice, " Oh, come and 
62 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

take me ! come and take me ! " At 
least that is what the lady said he 
meant, for the minute she put her 
hand on him he stopped crying. 

So of course she cuddled him up 
against her cheek for a minute, and 
talked to him, and comforted him, and 
then gave him another drink of warm 
milk. 

You see, she had left him until he 
got hungry, and then he had squirmed 
out to look for his lady ; and when he 
could not find her he screamed and 
cried. He always did make a great 
fuss when he was hungry. 

Little Mitchell and his lady were 
comfortable enough at the home of 
Mr. Dolph Wilson, who, you must 
not forget, lives at the foot of the 
sensible side of the great Mount 
Mitchell ; and if you ever decide to 
go to the top of that mountain, that 
is the very best way to go. Only it 

63 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

will take you a long time to get to 
the Wilsons' from anywhere, — almost 
as long as it would take to go to the 
moon if there were a rapid-transit 
trolley up there. 

But you will see a very lovely 
valley if you do go, — not to the moon, 
to Mr. Adolph Wilson's, I mean, — 
and a beautiful cold river with a 
great many large smooth rocks in 
its bottom, and as handsome a forest 
as exists this side of the moon, or the 
other side either, as far as I know. 

Besides, there are the young Wil- 
sons, who will be glad to see you, 
and who will show you over the 
mountains round about ; and, finally, 
Mr. and Mrs. Wilson will take you 
up Mount Mitchell on Belle, the mule, 
if you want to go that way. 

Mr. Dolph Wilson is the son of 
"Big Tom," the most famous bear- 
hunter in these parts. It was he 

64 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

who found the body of Dr. Mitchell 
when every one else had given up the 
search. He loves to tell the story of 
that search, and it would make you 
cry, it is so sad, — for "Big Tom" 
loved Dr. Mitchell. But if you want 
to hear him tell the story, which is 
well worth going a long distance for, 
you will need to go soon, for " Big 
Tom " is a very old man now, so old 
that he cannot have a great many 
more years to live. 

Well, the lady had to get back 
home ; so the day after she got to 
his house Mr. Dolph Wilson drove 
her and the guide and Baby Mitchell, 
in his carriage, with the two little, 
lazy, long-eared mules, for ten miles. 
They stopped at " Big Tom's " log- 
cabin to see him and hear him tell 
his story, and then they went on. 

Their way was over a rough moun- 
tain road, where they had to ford a 

5 65 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

great many stony streams and a 
shining river two or three times. 

But Baby Mitchell did not care 
anything about this, for he was asleep 
in the guide's hand. You see, at that 
time of his life he did almost noth- 
ing but sleep and eat, and he never 
cried at all excepting when he was 
hungry. 

The big, kind-hearted guide looked 
very funny holding Baby Mitchell so 
carefully in one hand, and the little 
can of condensed milk in the other, 
while the carriage bumped and jerked 
over the rough road. For of course 
they had to take along the can of 
milk for fear they might not be 
able to get anything else for Baby 
Mitchell's dinner. 

Mr. Dolph Wilson could take them 
only ten miles on their way, because 
he had to go back home and attend 
to some men who had come from ever 

66 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

so far to go fishing for trout in the 
river by his house. 

But ten miles was enough, for the 
lady could easily walk to her next 
stopping-place, which she did, along 
a lovely valley with the high moun- 
tains on all sides of her ; and she 
carried Little Mitchell now, while the 
guide took her bag and the can of 
milk. 

At noon she sat down under a tree 
by the roadside. So few people live 
along here that it was as quiet and 
lonely where the lady stopped to rest 
as though it had been in the midst 
of the forest. 

She unrolled Baby Mitchell and let 
him lie and stretch his limbs in the 
warm sun, which he did in a very 
comical manner, — for all the world 
like a nice, comfortable human baby. 
Then she gave him some condensed 
milk, and he had no sooner eaten it 
67 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

than he fell fast asleep again, and she 
rolled him up in his blanket and laid 
him on a stone while she ate her 
lunch. 

When she was rested, they went 
on until they reached the place where 
the lady was to spend the night. The 
guide went home, and he wanted very 
much to take Baby Mitchell for his 
children to play with. But of course 
the lady could not allow that. The 
little fellow was altogether too young 
and tender to be handled by careless 
children who might not know how to 
avoid hurting him. So she kept him 
with her ; and again he had good 
warm milk for his supper, and was 
put to sleep in a whole feather-bed. 

The next morning Baby Mitchell 
and the lady took another long drive. 
This time they had to go in a lumber 
wagon, over a road that was, oh, so 
rough! Even Baby Mitchell kept 

68 




-, - ^sM-^ 



Little Mitchell Warming Himself 

" He would flatten himself out and warm the under side of his 
body before the fire." (Page 77) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

waking up, the wagon jolted so. 
They forded deep rivers, and they 
went down mountains and up moun- 
tains ; but by noon ■ they got back to 
the place where the lady started from 
when she went ever so far to the foot 
of Mount Mitchell. 

This place was a log-house, but it 
was not like the log-houses of the 
mountain people. It was a beautiful 
house, and belonged to dear friends 
of the lady They had built it that 
they might come deep into the moun- 
tains to live every summer. 

There were no feather-beds here, 
and there were a number of cats. 
But you will want to know more 
about them, for they were very re- 
markable cats. 

The gentleman at this house where 
Baby Mitchell's lady was visiting gave 
him a nice little wooden box, with a 
great many holes bored in it to let in 

70 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

the air ; and the gentleman's wife gave 
him some soft cotton for a bed. Then 
Baby Mitchell's lady, and the gentle- 
man, and the gentleman's wife, all 
looked at Baby Mitchell. His lady 
had scarcely taken time for that be- 
fore, she was so occupied in getting 
him safe through. 

Such a funny Baby Mitchell! All 
head and feet, you know, with the 
queerest little fuzzy tail ! 'And those 
eyes tight shut ! The gentleman said 
he never would have any eyes ; but 
he only said that to tease the lady, 
and the gentleman's wife said, " Oh, 
shame ! " for she had quite fallen in 
love with the ridiculous-looking little 
furry baby. 

Then the lady took Baby Mitchell 
up to her own pretty room and laid 
him on the bed, rolled up in his 
blanket, while she went to eat her 
supper. When she came back with 

71 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

a cup of warm milk for him, she took 
up the little roll of blanket, and what 
do you think! 

It was empty. No Baby Mitchell 
there ! 

The lady thought of the cats ; but 
the door was tight shut, and there 
were screens in the windows. She 
looked on the bed and on the floor, 
but saw no Baby Mitchell. Then she 
began, as well as she could, to make 
the little noise that Baby Mitchell 
made when he was hungry ; and 
presently, if you will believe it, she 
heard something answer her. So she 
kept calling, and Baby Mitchell kept 
answering, until at last she found 
him; and where do you think he 
was? 

He had managed to crawl out of his 

blanket, and no doubt he felt very 

lonely and tired and hungry, so he 

started out to find his lady. He had 

72 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

scrambled down to the floor, and gone 
across the room, and climbed upon a 
low couch under the window ; and on 
the pillow cf the couch was lying his 
lady's cap, where she had left it a few 
minutes before. And here she found 
him, all curled up into a little round 
ball on the top of her cap. He must 
have smelled it, and gone there. 

So the lady said, " It is time now 
for you to have a room of your own, 
where you cannot get lost." 

Then she took the cotton that her 
friend, the gentleman's wife, had given 
her, and put it into the box that her 
friend the gentleman had bored full of 
holes, and made a soft bed for Baby 
Mitchell. Then she gave him a good 
supper of warm milk, and put him to 
bed in his box, and he went fast 
asleep and slept soundly until the 
next morning. 

After breakfast next day the lady 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

put Baby Mitchell on the couch while 
she fixed his box, and when she went 
to take him, — what do you think % 
He had one round black eye wide 
open! He didn't seem to know he 
had an open eye, though, and went 
nosing about just as he did when he 
had no eye at all. 

Next day open came the other 
round black eye, and then all at once 
Baby Mitchell seemed to be able 
to see. And if you will believe it, 
he was now afraid of his lady! He 
probably had not expected to open 
his eyes on a lady instead of on a 
furry little bunny mother ; and so he 
was as badly frightened as though he 
had never licked condensed milk from 
her finger, nor been taken care of by 
her through more than half of his 
short life. 

No, not quite so badly frightened, 
either ; for when his lady caught him 

74 




Little Mitchell's First Chestnut 

" He took it in his baby hands, and sat up, and looked around, 

very wise indeed." (Page 113) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

and covered up his bright eyes, he 
smelled her hands and was not afraid, 
and very soon he got to know her by 
sight. 

She used to give him warm milk 
out of a spoon three or four times a 
day, and every day he took a little 
more, and every day he grew a little 
larger. After he had eaten he would 
climb all over his lady, and sit on her 
shoulder or on her knee for a few 
minutes ; but he would soon get sleepy 
and be glad to creep into his warm 
nest, when his lady would shut the 
box cover down tight over him — so 
that if a cat should happen to get into 
the room and find his box, and should 
try ever so hard to get him out, she 
could not do it. 

Sometimes Baby Mitchell would 
climb up on the wire screen that 
stood before the fireplace ; and in the 
early morning, when the air was cool 

76 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

and there was a fire blazing in the 
fireplace, he used to like to flatten 
out on the screen and warm the little 
white underside of his body. But 
soon it would get too hot for him ; 
and then do you think he would climb 
down again? Not at all. He would 
look at his lady out of his big black 
eyes, and nod his head at her as 
much as to say, "Come and take me 
down," — which she always did. 

So, you see, he was very much petted 
and spoiled. Everybody in the house 
petted and spoiled him — excepting 
the cats, and they longed to pet him, 
and I am perfectly sure that if they 
had done so they would have com- 
pletely spoiled him. 



77 



IV 

LITTLE MITCHELL'S CAT NEIGHBORS 

1ETEEKII, Jack, Hallet, and Goliah, 
— these were the cats. Peterkin and 
the lady had been great friends. 
Peterkin was a very proud cat and 
a very handsome one, dark and tiger- 
striped. He used to come into the 
lady's room a great deal, and some- 
times he would sleep all night on the 
couch under the window. 

When the lady got back from her 
visit to Mount Mitchell, Peterkin was 
glad, and ran up to her room ; but, to 
his amazement, she did not invite him 
in. She even shut the door in his 
face. 

Peterkin walked off with his tail in 
the air, and never came to see her 

78 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

again. She tried to explain, but it was 
no use ; Peterkin never forgave her. 

He was a very wise cat, and likely 
enough, if she had shown Baby Mitch- 
ell to him, he would have understood 
and been very good ; but she was 
afraid to risk it, for Baby Mitchell was 
such a tender little dot that if Peterkin 
had not understood, or had not under- 
stood soon enough, there might have 
been a sad ending to the little Black 
Mountain baby. For, you see, no 
matter how sorry Peterkin might have 
been after it was all over, or no matter 
how well he might have understood 
after he had done it, that wouldn't 
have helped Baby Mitchell any after 
he had been eaten up. So Peterkin 
was gently but firmly refused admit- 
tance ; and, as I said, he never got 
over it. 

Peterkin was a wise cat, but not so 
wise as his mother. Peterkin's mother 

79 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

was called Grandma, and she was the 
wisest cat I ever knew. She was a 
little cat, striped like Peterkin, but not 
handsome like him, for she had had a 
very hard time when she was young, 
and that perhaps is why she was so 
wise. 

She belonged to people who were 
not kind to her, and they often teased 
and hurt her, and they did not give 
her enough to eat. So she did not 
grow large nor handsome, because one 
must have the right kind of food and 
care when one is young in order to 
grow properly. 

But she learned a great deal about 
people and how to look out for herself; 
so when she came to live with the gen- 
tleman and the gentleman's wife and 
catch mice for them, she was a wise 
little cat as well as a homely one. 

But they did not know she was 
homely, for they found out what a 

80 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

loving little heart she had, and how 
wise she was ; and, you know, it 
doesn't matter at all how homely 
you are if you are only loving and 
thoughtful and quick and kind. In- 
deed, you will seem quite beautiful to 
those about you, — more beautiful than 
if you looked prettier and were less 
kind and loving. 

So the little Grandma soon won 
the hearts of her new friends. Jack 
and Hallet were her grandchildren, 
and fine fellows they were, so big and 
black and striped, — real tiger-cats. 

It was strange that such a little cat 
as Grandma should have such large, 
handsome children and grandchildren ; 
but then, you see, she might have 
been large and handsome herself if she 
had been properly cared for when she 
was young. 

Well, Grandma's daughter Ann was 
the mother of Jack and Hallet. Be- 

6 81 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

fore Jack and Hallet were born their 
mother Ann was in great trouble, 
because every time before all but one 
of her kittens had mysteriously dis- 
appeared, and after a while that one 
disappeared too. 

She seemed to know that the gen- 
tleman and the gentleman's wife were 
somehow to blame for this, for she 
had always had her kittens in the 
house, and had taken great pride in 
showing them to her human friends as 
soon as they were born. This time 
she and Grandma were noticed having 
a great consultation together ; that 
means, you know, that they seemed 
to be talking it over. Finally, she and 
Grandma went off, Grandma leading 
the way. 

The gentleman wondered what it 
was all about, and watched them 
without their knowing it. Grandma 
led Lady Ann up the long hill back 

82 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

of the house to an old barn, way off 
where hay was stored. Into this barn 
they went, and in a nice soft bed of 
hay Jack and Hallet were born ; and 
not a word did these two conspirators 
say to their human friends about the 
two handsome kits up in the old hay 
barn. 

But when the kittens were half 
grown, — too big to disappear, you 
know, — their mother proudly took 
them home and showed them to the 
gentleman and his wife, who were also 
very proud of them, they were so 
handsome. 

Well, they were Jack and Hallet, 
and they lived to be old and very 
well behaved cats, and they were al- 
ways handsome. Little Goliah was 
Grandma's own child ; but he never 
was much of a kit, for Grandma was 
very old — that is, old for a cat — 
when he was born. She hid him 
83 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

away until he was a big kit, for she 
wanted to save him from disappearing ; 
and because he was her youngest he 
was also her favorite. Even after he 
was grown up, she would wash his 
face and brush his coat with her rough 
tongue. She treated him as though 
he were a little kitten until she died 
of old age. 

And Goliah was always a weak kit, 
and not nearly as large nor as hand- 
some as the others, and not so very 
wise. But the gentleman's wife took 
the best of care of him for Grandma's 
sake. 

The very funniest, cunningest thing 
Grandma ever did was to bring the 
kit that sat on the sticky fly-paper to 
her mistress. This happened before 
Grandma got to be so old. The 
kitten was very young, and it was her 
grandchild, the child of her daughter 
Sue. 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

One day the little fuzzy kit sat 
down on the sticky fly-paper that the 
girls who worked in the kitchen had 
left lying around. They had been for- 
bidden to use it, for fear a kit might sit 
on it ; and how they got the fly-paper 
anyway is a mystery. For the gentle- 
man and his wife had built their pretty 
log-house away out in the mountains, 
thirty or forty miles from a railroad, 
and there were no shops in the moun- 
tains where one could go to buy 
things. 

Probably the fly-paper had been 
sent by mistake with the things 
ordered from the far-away big city. 
Things were always being sent by 
mistake. 

So the kit sat down on the fly-paper. 
Then it rolled over on it, trying to get 
loose. 

The girls took it up as soon as they 
saw it, but it was a dreadful-looking 

85 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

kitten by the time they got it free. 
Its fur was all stuck together, and its 
paws and its ears and everything were 
terribly stuck up. 

Then its mother and Grandma tried 
to put it to rights, and they licked and 
licked and licked, but the more they 
licked the worse it looked. There 
was no doing anything with it. 

Finally the gentleman and his wife, 
who were in the sitting-room, heard 
Grandma crying very loudly at the 
door. They wondered what had hap- 
pened, and opening the door saw 
Grandma on the step. She was talk- 
ing very fast, — in her meow talk, you 
know, — and behind her stood Mother 
Sue with the kitten in her mouth. 

They had done all they could, and 
now they had come for help to the 
gentleman and his wife. 

The gentleman was very angry 
when he saw the fix the kitten was 

86 




Little Mitchell "Washes his Face 
Out there in the corn-field he climbed quickly up to her shoulder, and sat 
there and washed his face with his little hands." (Page 125) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

in, and the careless girls in the kitchen 
got a good scolding, which I am sure 
they deserved. But before he took 
time to do any scolding, the gentle- 
man got something that would soften 
the sticky stuff, and he and his wife 
very carefully cleaned the baby kit- 
ten's fur, and then washed it with 
warm water and soap, and rubbed it 
dry. It was hours before they got 
that kitten put to rights. 

Well, those were the cats that lived 
around Baby Mitchell ; and if he had 
only had a number of lives, no doubt 
the kittens could have been taught, 
after they had killed him a few times, 
that they must not hurt him. But as 
he had only one life, he could n't very 
well spare that ; and so the kits had to 
be shut out of the room where he was. 

I think they knew he was there, for 
they used to smell about the door and 
act as kits do when they think there 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

is a mouse inside. Not that Baby 
Mitchell smelled at all like a mouse, — 
indeed, he was the sweetest, cleanest 
little dot that ever wore a fur coat, — 
never any unpleasant odor about him. 
But kits can smell so much sharper 
than we, that they no doubt knew 
there was some little chap in there, 
and they no doubt thought the little 
stranger needed their attention. For 
they were famous hunters, and caught 
all the mice on the place, as well as 
all the squirrels and birds they could, 
and even the rabbits. 

Of course it was too bad for them to 
catch the birds and squirrels ; but they 
were not really to blame, for they did 
not know any better. They thought 
all little animals ought to be eaten up 
by kits, if kits could catch them. 

Not that they ever got very hungry, 
for they always had enough, and more 
than enough, in their plates around 

89 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

at the back of the kitchen. Every 
morning and evening, when the man 
brought the fresh milk, their dishes 
were filled, and when they heard him 
sing out, " Poos, p-ooo-s, p-ooo-s," 
they would come running out of the 
woods, or from under the house, or off 
the' porch, or wherever they happened 
to be, - — for no matter how many mice 
and squirrels and birds they had eaten 
they were always able to drink a little 
milk. 

It was fun to see their heads close 
together in the dish ; only Goliah 
would never eat with the others. He 
had to have his dish separate, and 
sometimes he would not eat at all 
unless his mistress took him in the 
house and let him sit by her chair. 
He would not even eat the nice meat 
and things the gentleman's wife gave 
the kits every day unless she fixed a 
plate for him all by himself. 

90 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

By this time you will have guessed 
that the gentleman's wife was fond 
of kittens. 

Long ago, when Grandma was 
young, there were twenty kits to take 
care of. They were all Grandma's 
children or grandchildren, and they ac- 
cumulated before the gentleman's wife 
could harden her heart enough to 
cause some of them to disappear when 
they were first born. Those were 
great days for the cats ! And it was 
a sight to see them come running 
when the man brought in the milk 
and called " Poos, p-ooo-s, p-ooo-s." 

It was a sight, too, to see them go 
walking with the family. When the 
gentleman and his wife would start for 
a walk in the cool of the evening, all 
the kits would go tagging on behind, 
with their tails in the air, as proud 
as you please. But as years passed, 
some of them died of old age or other- 

91 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

wise disappeared, until finally there 
were only Peterkin, Jack, Hallet, 
and Goliah left, — a very harmonious 
family, all but Goliah, who was some- 
times cross to the other kits, and 
would growl at them and slap their 
faces, which seemed to astonish them 
very much. 

Peterkin, Jack, Hallet, and Goliah 
were the only cats that belonged 
there when Baby Mitchell appeared 
upon the scene. Not that Baby 
Mitchell was seen much, for he stayed 
in his lady's room, with the door shut, 
all the time. 

But Billy came every day to drink 
the milk and eat the good things the 
other cats had. Billy belonged to the 
man who brought the milk, and he 
had plenty to eat at home. Still, he 
liked to come, and the gentleman's 
wife let him, because he was related to 
Grandma too. He was a funny-look- 

92 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

ing cat, rather square in shape, and 
he had a way of scratching with his 
hind legs, like a dog. He was cross 
to Goliah and would cuff him when he 
got a chance. 

Then there was Lady Jane. He 
had one white eye and a torn ear. 
He was a very dissipated-looking cat, 
and he had evidently fought a great 
many fights. Why he was called 
Lady Jane, I am sure I do not know. 
He was not related to Grandma, and 
nobody knew where he came from. 
He did not fight the kits that be- 
longed to the gentleman's wife, at 
least not when he came to get some- 
thing to eat. And though she did 
not like his looks, the gentleman's 
wife was too kind-hearted to drive 
him away. 

When summer was over, the gen- 
tleman and his wife went away to 
their other home in a Northern city; 
93 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

but yon must not suppose they left 
their cats to suffer. No, indeed ! The 
kits had a warm house of their own 
to sleep in, and there was a little 
door left open at the back of it so that 
they could go into the kitchen if they 
wanted to. They were good neat cats, 
that never abused this privilege. 

Every day, all winter long, the man 
came with fresh milk, night and 
morning, and called "P-ooo-s, p-ooo-s, 
p-ooo-s." And two or three times a 
week they had fresh meat, or, best of 
all, canned salmon. The gentleman 
left a whole case of salmon for them 
every year, and they loved it better 
than anything else, — for you know 
cats are very fond of fish. Some cats 
will even go fishing for themselves if 
they live near the water. 

Baby Mitchell's lady once had a cat 
whose name was Little Man Friday, 
and he would catch his own fish out 

94 




Little Mitchell Likes Chinkapins 

" He sat on the Lady's knee and cracked chinkapins, and would give the shells 
a toss that sent them far away." (Page 132) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

of a little bayou that came up from 
the Gulf of Mexico, on whose shore 
the lady lived. For Little Man Friday 
was a Florida cat, and perhaps some 
day you may like to hear his story, 
and how he got his name. 

Grandma and the other kits knew 
perfectly well when the gentleman 
and his wife were packing their trunks 
to go North, and it made the poor kits 
very unhappy. It made Grandma so 
dreadfully unhappy toward the end of 
her life that they used to do it slyly, 
and not let her see the preparations 
for going away. 

Well, there isn't any more about 
Peterkin, Jack, Hallet, and Goliah. 
They came into the story only because 
they lived in Baby Mitchell's house — 
no, Baby Mitchell lived in their house 
a little while, and they didn't eat 
him up, although they were such near 
neighbors. 

96 



LITTLE MITCHELL STARTS OUT TO 
SEE THE WORLD 

It was soon time for Little 
Mitchell's lady to go back to her 
home in Boston. 

"What are you going to do with 
that little squirrel % " asked her friend 
the gentleman in whose house she 
stayed. 

" I shall try to take him with me," 
said she. 

" Of course you will," said her friend 
the gentleman's wife. She knew how 
it is about kittens, you see, and how 
you get attached to them and do not 
like to give them away to other people 
who may not always remember to take 
good care of them. 

7 97 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

So the lady told Little Mitchell he 
should go to Boston with her. He 
didn't say whether he wanted to go 
or not, but of course he did want to 
go, — for what could the little fellow 
have done without his lady ? He was 
still such a baby, and slept more than 
anything else, and still drank his milk 
out of a spoon as you drink out of a 
tumbler. But how he did hate to 
have his mouth wiped ! When he had 
done drinking milk, his lady would 
wipe his mouth off on a soft napkin, 
and he never forgot to scream and 
cry when she did it. He was like 
some other naughty children. 

Oh no, he did n't like to have a 
dirty face, — that was n't it. But he 
liked to wipe his mouth himself, and 
the trouble is he would n't always wipe 
it in the right place. Sometimes he 
would wipe it on the napkin, like a 
good little squirrel; but he preferred 

98 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

to squirm out of his lady's hand and 
wipe it on her dress, and of course she 
did not like that. 

She would often give him a drink 
of cold water, and he seemed to enjoy 
that almost as much as the milk, 
though the gentleman said he ought 
not to have it, for his own mother 
would not have given him cold water. 
But the lady only laughed, and said 
the reason that mother squirrels did 
not give their babies cold water was 
because they had no tumblers in 
which to carry it. 

Anyway, he enjoyed the cold water, 
and he grew fast, and seemed a very 
healthy, happy little fellow ; and if 
he ever had a stomach-ache he said 
nothing at all about it. So I do not 
believe he ever had one, for if any- 
thing was really the matter with him 
he was quick enough to make a fuss. 

The day came at last for the lady 

99 
LofO. 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

to say good-bye to her dear friends, 
the gentleman and the gentleman's 
wife, and Peterkin, Jack, Hallet, and 
Goliah, and Sally and Lenoir. 

Who were Sally and Lenoir ? Why, 
don't yon know ? Sally was the white 
horse with the long mane, and when 
the long forelock was parted down 
over her face she looked just like the 
beautiful picture of Kosa Bonheur's 
horse ; and Lenoir was the black 
horse, just as handsome as Sally, but 
not so famous-looking. 

The gentleman and the gentle- 
man's wife said good-bye to Little 
Mitchell; but Peterkin, Jack, Hallet, 
and Goliah did not, for they were 
not allowed to. The lady gave Peter- 
kin a kiss on the top of his head be- 
tween his ears, because she liked him 
very much and felt sorry that he was 
offended with her. 

Then the man who was to drive her 

100 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

and Little Mitchell away in the car- 
riage snapped his whip, the two mules 
started off at a trot down the drive- 
way, and Little Mitchell and the lady 
were off, — not exactly for Boston, be- 
cause they had to go to a good many 
places before they could get there. 

And first, they had to go to Grand- 
father Mountain. 

Of course they took a long and 
lovely drive that day, but there were 
no deep rivers to cross, only some 
dear little streams, all ripply and shiny 
where the sun got through to them 
under the tall trees. 

After a while they came to a school- 
house, buried deep in the shady forest. 
It was not vacation, and as it was re- 
cess, all the little barefooted boys and 
girls stood and looked at the carriage 
and the lady and the driver. 

It was not often that anybody passed 

the schoolhouse on that lonely road, 
101 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

and they were very much interested. 
The lady was very much interested 
too. They were such bright, pretty 
little barefooted people. So she got 
out and spoke to the schoolmaster, 
and to the children, who gathered 
shyly about her and looked into her 
face so sweetly that she wanted to 
kiss them all. 

After the lady and Little Mitchell 
and the driver had gone ever so far 
past the schoolhouse, they stopped for 
dinner. The mules had some corn 
and some dried corn-leaves to eat, 
and the lady had sandwiches and 
cake and jam and lots of other good 
things out of a box that the gentle- 
man's wife had given her; and the 
driver had all he wanted too. But 
of course Little Mitchell had con- 
densed milk again ; the gentleman's 
wife had given the lady a nice fresh 
can of it for him. When he had 

102 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

eaten his dinner, he stretched out on 
his lady's knee and took a sun-bath 
and a nap while she read in a book. 

Then he was put back in his little 
box, and they all went on again, 
through more lovely forests and over 
the Blue Ridge Mountain, which is 
not so very high along here. The 
road was rather rough and steep in 
places ; but you know what a sleepy- 
head Little Mitchell was, so the jolt- 
ing of the carriage did not wake him 
up. 

Well, toward night they got to a 
little hotel near the beautiful Linville 
Falls. Here they stayed until next 
morning; but Little Mitchell did not 
sleep in a feather-bed this time, be- 
cause, you know, he had his own little 
box, with nice warm cotton to cuddle 
down in. 

Of course the children who lived 
here had to have a peep at the funny 

103 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

little fellow. The children's mother 
gave him some milk for his supper, 
and then the lady put him to bed. 

Next morning the lady and Little 
Mitchell and the driver went on, and 
at noon they had their dinner again 
by the roadside, and Little Mitchell 
again had his condensed milk, and 
screamed as naughty as could be 
when his mouth was wiped, and 
stretched himself on his lady's knee 
in the sun. 

Toward night they climbed a long 
sloping road up the side of the Grand- 
father Mountain. It was a beautiful 
smooth road, not at all jolty ; and 
soon they came to a white house on 
the mountain side, the only house for 
several miles. 

Here the driver left them and re- 
turned to his own home ; but Little 
Mitchell and the lady stayed there 
several days. 

104 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

Little Mitchell did not care about 
the beauty of the mountains, but the 
lady did. She used to go out and 
walk, and leave him at home asleep. 
Sometimes she walked up toward the 
top of the great Grandfather Moun- 
tain, — that rocky top, as black as 
ink, which you can see miles and 
miles away. It is black because the 
sharp rocky ridge wears a dress of 
lichens as black as coals. I don't 
know why such black lichens grow 
all over Grandfather's top, but they 
do, and below the black rocks is a 
wide belt of dark green balsam firs 
that you know look black in the dis- 
tance ; so it is a very stern-looking 
Grandfather Mountain indeed. 

Why is it called the Grandfather 
Mountain % 

Well, if you walk along a road that 
is at the north side of it you will come 
to a place where you can look across 

105 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

and see standing out from the side of 
the mountain a great stone face, like 
the face of an old, old man ; and it is 
from this profile the mountain gets its 
name. 

Where Little Mitchell's lady walked 
down in the woods below, it was not 
black at all, but very bright and 
sweet, with fine trees growing; for it 
is only near the top that the balsam 
firs are found. 

Some of the forest leaves had al- 
ready changed their color; for it was 
early fall now, and the woods were all 
golden in the sunshine, and the yellow 
witch hazel was everywhere in bloom. 

Along the edges of the road were 
little piles of acorn shells. These 
were the work of the squirrel folk. 
They had shelled out the green 
acorns, and of course they must have 
eaten the inside part, or kernel. Every 
little pile of shells showed where a 

106 




Little Mitchell on a Frolic 

Hop, hop, went Little Mitchell, all up and down the room." (Page 142) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

squirrel had sat and eaten acorns, or 
perhaps he had been on a limb of 
the tree above and dropped the shells 
down. 

The lady tasted one of the green 
acorns, but it was so bitter and puckeiy 
she made up a queer face over it. 
But she put some of the acorns in 
her pocket for Little Mitchell. Since 
the other squirrels liked them so 
much, she thought perhaps he would 
like them too ; but when she gave 
them to him he 'only played with 
them, and did not even try to eat 
one. 

It was about this time that Little 
Mitchell began to sit up. Such a 
funny, floppy sitting up as it was! 
He did not hold his back up straight, 
but got himself all into a queer little 
heap, and the best he could do was to 
keep from tumbling over. But no 
doubt he felt very proud of himself, 

108 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

and imagined he was a big grown-up 
squirrel. 

He was n't, though, for he could not 
crack even an acorn; and he still 
drank milk, though he had learned to 
love sugar cookies. His lady would 
give him a little piece of one, and he 
liked it so much he almost choked 
himself to death trying to stuff it 
down his throat too fast. 

You may know what a baby he was 
when I tell you how he ran into the 
fireplace. 

The first time he tried it, there was 
no fire there, and he started to go up 
the chimney, and his lady caught him 
just in time and pulled him down all 
black and sooty. 

The next time there was a fire ; 
but that didn't matter to Little 
Mitchell. He ran right into it, and 
burned the whiskers all off one side 
of his face, and the lady snatched him 

109 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

out just in time to prevent his poor 
little nose from getting burned too. 
He was so surprised that he didn't 
even try to get out. You see, he was 
such a baby ! 

Of course he slept in his little box 
of cotton, and one cold night his lady 
was awakened in the middle of the 
night by a great commotion. She 
heard something scratching frantically 
somewhere, and Little Mitchell was 
screaming and crying like everything. 

She jumped up and got a light, and 
there was Little Mitchell's box wig- 
gling about as though bewitched. He 
was inside, scratching and thumping 
about and crying with all his might. 
What could be the matter ? 

You remember it was a cold night, 
and the lady concluded the little fel- 
low was cold, and so she took him 
out. The moment he got into her 

warm hand, he stopped crying; so, 

no 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

not knowing what else to do, she 
took him to bed with her, and he 
curled down at her side under her 
hand and went to sleep like a good 
little kitten. 

When he woke up in the morning, 
what do you think he did % He licked 
his lady's hand first ; then he began to 
play with her fingers, making believe 
to bite them, and patting them with 
his little paws and jumping away just 
as a kitten does. 

They had a real good frolic. Little 
Mitchell would scamper down to the 
foot of the bed under the covers, then 
come creeping up until close to the 
lady's hand, when she would poke it 
at him and he would scurry off again. 

So he kept on playing until it was 

time to get up ; then the lady left him 

alone, all covered up in the warm bed, 

and he curled right up and went to 

sleep until she was ready to go down- 
in 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

stairs, when she put him in his little 
box, which he didn't like at all, you 
may be sure. But there was a fire 
now, so the room was warm ; and soon 
his lady brought him his breakfast of 
warm milk and a little piece of sugar 
cooky. 

Of course the lady always remem- 
bered the baby bunny asleep in his 
nest at home, when she went out to 
walk ; and if she saw anything she 
thought he would like, she brought it 
home to him. 

One day she brought him some 
chestnuts. They were the very first 
ones to get ripe. Indeed, they were 
not ripe enough to fall out of their 
burrs of themselves ; but when their 
burrs were pounded open with a stone, 
out they slipped, fine, fat, shiny brown 
ones. And so big they were ! That 
is because they grew on the dear and 
lovely Grandmother Mountain, which 

112 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

you know is not so high as Grand- 
father Mountain, but close to it, and 
very beautiful, covered with all sorts 
of delightful growths. And its chest- 
nuts are so big ! They grow on little 
low trees, so little you would hardly 
expect to find any nuts on them ; 
but their tops are just covered with 
big, round, splendid burrs full of big, 
plump, brown nuts that are as sweet 
as any nuts can be. The lady took 
some of these nuts home, but she 
did not give them to Little Mitchell 
until she had roasted them in the hot 
ashes and made them quite soft. Then 
she gave him one, and the baby took 
it in his hands, and sat up as well as 
he could, and looked very wise indeed. 
But he was just making believe, for he 
didn't know in the least what to do 
with that nut. He sniffed at it, but 
seemed to have no idea what was 
inside, until the lady opened it for 
3 113 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

him. Then he ate a piece of it, gnaw- 
ing it with his four little front teeth, 
and liked it very much. 

Every day after that he had roasted 
chestnuts with his milk. 

Oh yes, indeed, he soon learned to 
know them with the shell on, and to 
take it off too. He would bite it loose, 
and then give it a fling that sent it 
ever so far. 

Thus they lived and had good times 
on the side of the beautiful Grand- 
father Mountain for more than a week. 
Then one day the lady's trunk was 
taken off by a mule team to Blowing 
Rock ; but she and Little Mitchell did 
not go with it. They went around on 
the other side of the mountain. 



114 



VI 



LITTLE MITCHELL REFUSES TO LEAVE 
HIS LADY 

Little Mitchell in his box, and 
the lady on her two feet, started off to 
go to the other side of Grandfather 
Mountain. They were on the south 
side now, you know, and they wanted 
to get to the north side. 

The way is to go across a sheep 
pasture, and climb a fence, and go 
across an old garden, or what once 
was a garden, and climb another fence, 
and then you are in the wild woods, 
with a pretty winding path in front of 
you and service trees overhead drop- 
ping down ripe red berries for you to 
eat, if you go at the right time of 
year. Little Mitchell and his lady 
were too late for the berries, but 

115 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

they went along under the pretty ser- 
vice trees. 

Well, you go on down the path into 
the deep, deep forest, with the big old 
oaks and beeches and other trees about 
you, and the sunbeams dancing in and 
out, making the forest all motley like 
the skin of a leopard. 

You go down steeper and steeper, 
until you come to the end of the path 
and enter a road that runs at right 
angles to it. 

It is a fearful road, full of loose stones 
and great rocks, such as you find in 
the bed of a stream. Indeed, it is the 
dry bed of a stream, and the stream 
itself, in another bed near by, is the 
very beginning of the Linville River, 
and you keep having to cross over the 
river any way you can, by jumping 
from stone to stone, and sometimes 
slipping off and getting wet. 

Sometimes this queer road runs right 

116 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

up the river bed ; and then you walk 
along the edge of it, along a winding 
path through the rhododendrons. 

There were some mountain people 
going along the road when Little 
Mitchell and the lady got to it that 
day. There were a man, a boy, a 
horse and wagon, and two young 
girls ; and they were all walking, be- 
cause it was easier to walk than to go 
tilting and jolting and jiggling over all 
those stones. Besides, the horse was 
not strong enough to pull anything but 
the wagon over such a road, and so 
they showed Little Mitchell's lady how 
to get across the young Linville by 
jumping on the stones. 

Little Mitchell was asleep in his box, 
which of course the lady carried as 
carefully as she could, so that he 
did n't know nor care anything about 
all this. 

They went gayly along together, 

117 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

until they got to the house where Lit- 
tle Mitchell's lady was to stop. It was 
a wild place, close to the great Grand- 
father Mountain ; but it was very 
sweet, with the fresh air and the tinkly 
stream across the road in front of the 
house. 

The stream was not the Linville, — 
they had left that behind. It was the 
beginning of the Watauga River, that 
flows in exactly the opposite direction 
from the Linville, and has trout hiding 
in its pools. 

The house stands on such a steep 
slope ! You look out of the front win- 
dows across the narrow Watauga 
valley, which is nothing but a gorge 
here, and see the Grandfather Moun- 
tain rising up like a tremendous wall 
all covered with trees. 

But back of the house, where the 
trees have been cut away, the steep 
slopes are just covered with wild straw- 

118 




Little Mitchell in his Box 

; There he lay on his back, like a hot, tired, human 
Uttle baby." (Page 152) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

berries. Such big, sweet berries ! 
Why, they are as big as your thumb ; 
mind, I say as big as your thumb, not 
as big as mine, which is quite another 
matter. But anyway they are big 
enough. Of course there were none 
then, — it was too late ; but in the 
early summer I should like to see you 
climb that slope without wetting your 
feet in strawberry juice ! You could n't 
do it, they are so thick. And sweet % 
— Well, you should just taste them ! 

Little Mitchell and his lady stayed 
all night in the house at the foot of 
the strawberry slope, and the people 
who lived there were pleased, for they 
knew Little Mitchell's lady, and were 
glad to see him too. They thought 
him the cunningest baby they had ever 
seen. He ran about the room, and 
climbed on the table, and washed his 
face, and played with his lady, and 
looked up the big stone chimney. He 

120 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

almost had a mind to run up it; but 
his lady said no, so he ate his supper 
of roasted chestnuts and fresh milk, 
and went to bed in his little box. 

Next morning the woman who kept 
the house went with Little Mitchell 
and his lady on a lovely walk over the 
mountains to where her mother lived. 

When noon came, they were only 
half-way there ; so they sat down on a 
sweet mountain-side, to rest and eat, 
and Little Mitchell's lady took him 
out of his box and gave him sugar 
cooky and roasted chestnuts for his 
dinner. She thought he could get 
along without milk now for a little 
while, because it was so hard to carry 
it. 

He had grown to be quite a squirrel 
by this time, and the lady thought 
that perhaps he was old enough to 
care for himself, and would like to be 
set free in the woods, which is the best 

121 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

home for the little squirrel-folk, you 
know. 

So she looked at him as he sat on 
her knee eating his chestnuts, which 
he held in his funny little hands and 
nibbled very fast indeed. He could 
sit up pretty well now, and yet he did 
look like such a baby ! 

Still, she thought perhaps she ought 
to let him go free ; and here in this 
wild spot, where there were no cats to 
catch him, was a good place. 

So when he had finished his dinner 
she put him down on the ground near 
a little tree, and then went back and 
sat down where she had been before, 
some distance away.' 

What do you think Little Mitchell 
did now? 

He looked around at the big, wild, 

lonely forest, and then at his dear 

lady, and he ran and scrambled and 

scampered as fast as his little legs 
122 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

could cany him, — not up the tree, oh 
no, indeed ! — but straight back to his 
lady. He climbed into her lap and 
stuck his head up her sleeve, and 
seemed glad to be at home again. 

You see, the little fellow was afraid, 
and no doubt it made him feel very 
bad to think that maybe he was to be 
left there all alone. 

But you may be sure the lady did 
not leave him after that. She tucked 
him into his little box, where he curled 
right up and went to sleep ; and when 
they started on again, she carried along 
the box with Little Mitchell in it. 

After all, there were no sugar cookies 
and roasted chestnuts in the woods for 
the little fellow. 

They spent the night at the woman's 
mother's house, and next morning 
Little Mitchell and his lady went on 
to Blowing Rock, which is several 
miles away. 

123 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

But it was a glorious walk, — first 
through the beautiful forest, and then 
out into a corn-field where the corn- 
stalks were rustling their brown leaves 
in the breeze. 

When they got to the corn-field, the 
lady took Little Mitchell out of the box ; 
the sun was warm, and she thought 
he would enjoy it, - — for he was getting 
too big now to stay shut up all day. 

So she opened the box-cover and 
out popped Little Mitchell. He 
climbed quickly up to her shoulder, 
and sat there and washed his face 
with his hands very fast indeed. 

He looked so cunning washing his 
face, that the lady always liked to see 
him do it. First he would flatten his 
ears down close to his head, then he 
would put his face into his two hands 
held close together, and scrub very 
fast, rubbing all over his ears and 
back of them. 

124 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

He did not lick his paws to moisten 
them, as a cat does, for he did not 
seem to have much moisture in his 
little mouth. His tongue was very 
small, and as soft as velvet. But 
when he wanted to wash his face, 
now, what do you think he did ? 
Why, he blew his nose hard into his 
hands, and then washed away ! What 
he got from his little nose was very 
clean and watery, just as clean as what 
puss gets on her paws when she licks 
them. Yes, it does seem strange to 
you, but that is the way the squirrel- 
folk all do. If you were a squirrel, 
you would think it queer to do any 
other way. 

Well, Little Mitchell, out there in 
the corn-field, sat up on his lady's 
shoulder and washed his face until he 
was satisfied ; then he climbed all 
over her, up and down and around, 
clear down to the hem of her dress. 

125 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

She was afraid he would get a little 
too frisky, and jump down to the 
ground and get lost ; but, dear me ! 
she need n't have worried about that. 
Jump down ? He would n't have left 
his lady that day among those rust- 
ling corn-stalks, not for the whole 
world. He just climbed about for 
fun and exercise ; but when the corn- 
leaves rustled, how scared he was! 
He scrambled as fast as he could 
down the lady's arm and up into her 
coat-sleeve ; ai^d when she got him 
out, back he went as soon as a corn- 
blade rustled near them. 

" You must be hungry," she said, 
when at last she had him cuddled up 
in her hand. So she picked an ear of 
corn, and they sat down and pulled off 
the husk and all the long soft silk that 
was inside, and Little Mitchell had 
some of the kernels. 

He took them in his little hands, 

126 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

one at a time, and looked up at his 
lady out of his bright eyes with such 
a wise air ! He turned the kernel of 
corn over, and sniffed at it until he 
found the germ that lies in one side, — 
the little thing that sprouts when you 
plant the corn, — and he pulled this 
out with his sharp front teeth, and ate 
it very fast ; but the rest of the ker- 
nel he threw away. Not a bit of it 
would he eat but that ! You see the 
germ was soft and sweet, and pleased 
the little chap. 

If all squirrels eat corn in that way, 
it is no wonder the farmers worry 
when they make a raid on the corn- 
fields in the early autumn ! 

When Mitchell had eaten all the 
tender corn-germs he wanted, they 
went on; and the very next blade 
that rustled near them — pop ! — he 
was over the lady's shoulder, up 
under her jacket, and in the top of 

127 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

her sleeve. She had to stop and take 
off her jacket and extract him. He 
kept on at this trick until finally she 
put him in his box and fastened the 
cover down, — which, after all, was 
just what he wanted, for he was 
tired, and he curled right up and 
went fast asleep and gave her no more 
trouble. 

Away they went, down the moun- 
tain, across the valley, up another 
mountain, and down into the Watauga 
valley, where the river is larger and 
where the chinkapins grow. 

It is the same valley where stands 
the house on the strawberry slope, — 
only the Watauga River is not a tin- 
kling trout-brook down here, but quite 
a proud stream, though it still has 
trout in its pools. 

Of course, when they got among the 
chinkapins they stopped to gather 
some, — for these were ripe, if the 

128 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

strawberries were not, and there were 
plenty of them too. 

What are chinkapins % 

Why, don't you know? All the 
children who live in the South know 
what chinkapins are, — at least, all 
who live where they grow know. 

They are not berries! No, guess 
again. 

Yes, nuts ; little shiny brown nuts, 
like baby chestnuts. The mountain 
children often string them for beads, 
they are so pretty. They grow in 
little burrs, like tiny chestnut burrs ; 
but there is only one nut in a burr in- 
stead of two or three, and they grow 
on bushes or little trees, with leaves 
like chestnut leaves, only smaller. 

No, chinkapins are not shaped quite 
like chestnuts ; they are not flat any- 
where. Chestnuts have to be flat on 
at least one side, because they grow 
three in a burr, and are squeezed 

9 129 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

against each other, so the middle 
chestnut is flat on both sides, but the 
others are flat only on the inside and 
rounded on the outside. But the 
chinkapin is rounded on both sides, 
because it is alone in its burr, with 
nothing to flatten against. Oh no, it 
is not round all over like a marble, — 
it is like a tiny chestnut, only it is 
rounded instead of being flattened on 
its sides. 

I wish I could give you a handful 
of shiny chinkapins, then you would 
know just how they look. 

Children who do not live near chin- 
kapins need to know about them be- 
cause of " Uncle Remus." When you 
read how " Brer Rabbit " sat on a 
chinkapin log, combing his hair with 
a chip, you ought to know what a 
chinkapin log is like. 

Chinkapins being so small, and only 
one in a burr, you can imagine they 

130 



,.r ' . J 



MF^ 







Little Mitchell's Visitor 
He scampered off as if the old cat were after him." (Page 158 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

are not easy to gather until Jack 
Frost comes along with his sharp 
fingers and splits open all the tiny 
burrs on all the little chinkapin trees. 
Then you have only to shake the trees 
or beat the bushes, and patter ! patter ! 
patter ! — out will come jumping the 
pretty brown chinkapins, as thick as 
rain-drops in a summer shower, and all 
you have to do is to get down and 
pick them up. 

Mitchell liked the little nuts, they 
are so sweet, and he could crack them 
for himself because the shells are soft, 
like chestnut shells. So he sat on the 
lady's knee in the chinkapin patch, 
and cracked chinkapins, and when he 
had succeeded in getting a shell off he 
would give it a toss that sent it far 
away. 

The lady ate chinkapins too, they 
were so sweet and good ; but Little 
Mitchell did not quite like that, — he 

132 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

seemed to think she was eating his 
nuts, and once in a while he would 
reach up and snatch away her chinka- 
pin, and scold and chatter at her. 
That was because he was hungry, 
and thought he wanted them all ; but 
when he had had enough he let her 
eat what she wanted too. 

Presently along came Phyllis Ama- 
ranth, Lucy Ansonia Belindy, and 
Mollie May. Of course they came 
with their pretty feet bare, and none of 
them were more than seven years old. 

They just smiled and smiled, and 
clasped their hands tight together, 
when they saw Little Mitchell. But 
he kept one eye on them, and when 
they came too near he ran and hid 
in the folds of his lady's dress. He 
did n't care for little girls, and he was 
terribly afraid they might touch him. 

So Phyllis Amaranth, Lucy Ansonia 
Belindy, and Mollie May ran to the 

133 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

chinkapin bushes and shook them, and 
picked up the chinkapins very fast, 
and gave them to Mitchell's lady for 
him, so that she soon had all she could 
carry without the trouble of picking 
any up. That is the way with these 
mountain people ; they will give you 
something if they possibly can. 

Then they all said good-bye to each 
other, and Little Mitchell and the lady 
went on. They crossed the Watauga 
valley, which is easy enough, it is so 
narrow ; then they crossed the Wa- 
tauga River, which is hard enough, the 
bridge is so narrow, and so high up in 
the air, and wobbles so you are afraid 
of your life to go over it, — but you 
have to, or else stay on the wrong side 
of the river, which, you understand, 
is quite a river here, very swift and 
rather deep. 

But they got safely over the wobbly 
bridge, and went on through the forest, 

134 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

only stopping a few minutes to look at 
a birch-still. 

A birch-still is a place where they 
distil birch-oil out of birch-bark. Do 
you know how it is done ? Well, 
you ought to, for you eat so much 
birch-oil. You don't think you ever 
ate any birch-oil in your life? Oh, 
but I know you have eaten it. I am 
perfectly sure you sometimes eat win- 
tergreen candy and other things fla- 
vored with wintergreen. That is, you 
call it wintergreen ; but it is not that 
at all, it is birch. You see the flavor 
is the same, and it is much easier to 
get it out of the birch. 

The way they do is to strip the bark 
from the young black-birch trees, — 
which of course kills the trees, and 
that is too bad; but they do it, and 
chop the bark into little pieces, which 
they put into a long wooden box with 
a zinc bottom. 

135 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

When the box is full of bark, they 
put in some water, and fit on the cover, 
and plaster all the cracks with clay 
until the box is air-tight, — all but a 
little round hole in the cover that has 
a lead pipe fitted into it. 

Then they build a fire in the fire- 
hole under the box, and soon the 
steam from the boiling water escapes 
through the pipe that is fitted in the 
cover. The pipe is coiled up in a 
barrel of water when it leaves the box, 
and is kept cool by a little stream of 
water which runs into the barrel all 
the time. 

Of course the steam that escapes 
through the pipe is turned back to 
water when it becomes cooled, passing 
through the coil in the barrel, and 
finally runs out of the other end of the 
pipe into a bottle. There is birch-oil 
in the steam that goes over, and the 
oil runs into the bottle with the water, 

136 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

but being heavier than water it sinks 
to the bottom of the bottle. When 
the bottle is full, the water runs out at 
the top ; but when it gets full of oil, 
they do not allow that to run over, — 
they take away the bottle of oil and 
put an empty bottle in its place. 

Yes, I know that oil is said to float 
on water, and some oil does, but birch- 
oil is heavy, as I have told you, and 
sinks to the bottom. 

The people take the oil to the store 
and exchange it for shoes and calico 
and safety-pins, and all the things they 
need. The storekeeper sells the oil 
to the manufacturers, who purify it and 
make it into flavoring extracts, and 
then the druggists use it in making 
medicines and tooth-powder, and the 
candy-makers flavor some of their 
candies with it, and the perfumers mix 
it with other things to make perfumes 
and scented soap. A great deal of 

137 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

this oil comes from the North Carolina 
mountains, and is made in the woods ; 
as I have told yon. 

Well, when Little Mitchell's lady 
had looked at the birch-still long 
enough, they went on until they got 
to Blowing Rock. And this is a very 
wonderful place. 



138 



VII 

LITTLE MITCHELL'S FIRST CAR-RIDE 

I OU can see three thunder-storms 
at once from Blowing Eock. 

Perhaps sometimes you can see 
more than that number. 

This is because Blowing Eock is on 
the edge of a mountain, where you 
can look off and off and off, — oh, so 
far, over a sea of mountains, where 
the storms gather. You know a 
thunder-storm is not very big; it is 
only as big as two or three clouds 
close together, and these clouds may 
be rather small. 

It is queer to see the rain pouring 
down in long straight lines over one 
part of the mountains, while all the 
rest is in sunshine. 

139 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

Little Mitchell's lady used to like to 
watch the thunder-storms, but Little 
Mitchell did not care anything about 
them. He preferred going with the 
lady to the big rock from which the 
little village of Blowing Rock gets its 
name. The Indians named it long 
ago, because when the wind is in the 
right quarter it blows so hard you can- 
not throw anything over the rock. If 
you try to throw your handkerchief or 
your hat over, you cannot do it, be- 
cause the wind flings it back to you. 
Sometimes it blows so strong you 
could n't even jump over, — so people 
say. But I should not like to try that, 
no matter how hard the wind blew ; it 
is such a very long way down to the 
tree-tops at the foot of the rock ! 

What Little Mitchell liked at the 
big rock was the sunshine and the 
fine places to run about ; but he never 
ran far from his lady, and at the 

140 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

slightest noise he would scurry back 
to her. 

There were some dear little children 
at Blowing Rock ; but you know how 
Mitchell felt on that subject ! He 
would have nothing to do with them, 
and if one of them took him up he 
would squirm and squeal so that he 
was quickly dropped. 

It was at Blowing Rock that he 
found out he could hop. 

His lady used to let him out of his 
box early in the morning, so that he 
could run around the room and exer- 
cise his muscles. She was afraid to 
take him outside with her unless she 
went a long way off, on account of 
the cats. 

So he would frolic with her, and 
jump at her hand under the bed-covers 
in the early morning, and when she 
got up he would play about the room, 
run over the table, look at everything 

141 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

on the bureau, including his own funny 
little face in the looking-glass ; and 
one day he found out he could hop. 

He went hop, hop, hop, just like a 
grown-up squirrel, the whole length of 
the room. 

Hop, hop went Little Mitchell. He 
had always crawled or crept about 
before this ; but that day he went hop, 
hop, hop, all up and down the room, 
and then up and down again. 

When the lady was ready to go out, 
she thought she would put him in his 
box. He had never given her any 
trouble before, but this time he scam- 
pered under the bed, away over against 
the wall out of reach, and there he 
went hop, hop, hop, up and down, up 
and down ; but he never came out 
from under the bed, because he did 
not want the lady to catch him. 

He looked so funny, hopping up 
and down, and he was having such a 

142 




H & 

a- 8 



P c 

o 

Hi ** 

£ & 






LITTLE MITCHELL 

glorious time, that his lady did not like 
to end it, and waited ever so long ; but 
as he kept on hopping, and showed 
no sign of ever going to stop, she 
finally got under the bed and captured 
him. 

You see he had found something 
new to do, and he was as excited over it 
as a child is over a new and delightful 
game. When the lady put him in his 
box, he squirmed and screamed; and 
when she fastened the cover down, he 
cried and scratched to get out. It 
was too bad, — but what else could 
the lady do? She did not want to 
stay shut up in her room all day, and 
she dared not leave him alone for fear 
some one might open the door and a 
cat get in. 

But he was really tired by this time ; 
and when he found that crying and 
scratching did no good, he curled up 
and went to sleep. When the lady 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

peeped into the room before going off, 
he was as quiet as a mouse ; and when 
she returned, he was still sound asleep 
in his little box. 

Now about hopping, — that is the 
way grown squirrels get over the 
ground, in little jumps ; and Baby 
Mitchell was growing every day, not 
only in size but in squirrel habits. 
How do you suppose he knew about 
hopping, when he had never seen a 
squirrel hop ? And how do you sup- 
pose he knew about sitting up and 
holding his nuts in his hands, when 
he had never seen a squirrel do these 
things ? And how do you suppose he 
knew about washing his face after the 
funny manner of the squirrel folk, when 
he had never seen another squirrel do 
it? 

I cannot tell you how he knew all 
these things ; but he did know them, 
and as he grew older, more and more 

10 145 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

squirrel habits came to him, as you 
shall see. 

The lady stayed at Blowing Eock 
only a few days ; then one morning 
she and Little Mitchell started off 
down the long winding road in a car- 
riage, — and this was the end of their 
life in the mountains. 

At the end of that drive they got 
onto a railway train, and went a little 
way, and then changed to another 
train, — only they had to wait a long 
time between trains. 

Little Mitchell's lady was very sorry 
for him now, because you see he was 
getting big enough to run about, and 
he had to take this long journey all 
shut up in his little box. 

But when they got to the station 
where they had to wait so long, she 
opened his box, and out he came. He 
ran all over her as fast as he could go, 
even jumping from her shoulder to the 
146 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

top of her head, and played with her 
hair, which she told him was naughty. 
Then he jumped down and ran all 
around the tops of the benches, for there 
was nobody else in the waiting-room. 

After a while a gentleman came in to 
wait for the train too, and he fell quite 
in love with the playful little fellow, 
and wanted to buy him to take home 
to his children ; but of course the lady 
would not sell him. 

At last the train came, and they got 
on and rode awhile, and then got off 
again to wait for another train. This 
was in a large station, full of people 
and lighted by electric lights. 

Little Mitchell's lady saw his box 
bumping about, and heard something 
inside go scratch, scratch, scratch. So 
she took off the cover, and out came 
Little Mitchell. He was very tired 
from being shut up so long and carried 

so fast in the jolty train, and he wanted 

147 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

to come out and see what was going 
on. The electric lights and the crowd 
and the strange sights and sounds all 
excited him. His eyes shone, and 
he was not satisfied to sit on his 
lady's shoulder and look about. He 
wanted to leap upon the back of a 
lady who was dressed in laces and furs. 
He was determined to do it, too ; 
but every time his lady caught him 
just as he was about to spring, and 
told him he mustn't. 

How surprised the strange lady 
would have been if he had done it! 
And how frightened Little Mitchell 
would have been! For, once there, 
he would not have known what to do, 
and would have wished himself back 
on his own lady's shoulder. 

At last she went into a dark corner 
with him, and let him sit on the seat 
by her and look at the people while he 
ate a piece of sugar cooky. 
148 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

Then the train came, and they got 
into the sleeping-car, — Little Mitchell 
in his little box, of course. 

He was a good squirrel all night, 
and early in the morning the lady let 
him look out of the window ; but he 
did not like that, — it frightened him 
to see things rushing by so fast. He 
preferred to race up and down in the 
berth, and jump at the lady's fingers 
from under the edge of the blanket, 
and turn somersaults when she made 
believe catch him. 

After a little while he got tired of 
this play, and was quite willing to be 
put into his box, where he stayed 
quietly until they got to Jersey City, 
and crossed the ferry, and went to the 
Grand Central Station in New York 
City, and got upon another train that 
soon left the noisy city behind. 

The noise and motion of the train 
seemed to tire and confuse the little 

149 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

fellow, so that lie was glad to stay 
hidden away in his own box, which 
was now the only thing that really 
seemed like home to him, — for even 
the lady had changed her skin, or at 
least she had put on strange clothes, 
which must have seemed to him just 
like changing her skin. 

When they left New York on the 
train for Hartford, — which is where 
they were going next, — Little Mitchell 
was let out of his box to sit on the 
seat by the lady's side and eat his 
dinner of roasted chestnuts and cooky. 
They still had some of the big, sweet 
Grandmother chestnuts, which they 
had brought with them, and which 
had all been nicely roasted, though 
Little Mitchell was beginning to enjoy 
a bit of raw chestnut by this time. 
Still, he preferred the roasted ones, 
and was able to pick them out from 
a handful of both kinds. 

150 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

When lie had finished his chestnut, 
he climbed, up on the back of the seat, 
and looked at an old lady, who fell in 
love with him on the spot, and wanted 
ever so much to hold him in her hand ; 
but do you think he would allow it? 
Not he. He jumped up on his own lady's 
shoulder, and then sprang down into her 
lap and hid in the folds of her dress. 

He was still such a baby, you see ! 

It is not a very long ride from New 
York to Hartford, as you know ; and 
when they got off the train it was 
almost dark, and there was a friend 
waiting for them, and soon they were 
driving along over nice smooth streets 
that did not jolt them at all. Then 
they came to a driveway under big 
trees, and to a house with the windows 
all lighted up ; and here they got out 
of the carriage, and some more friends 
came to the door to meet them. They 
were in Hartford at last. 

151 



VIII 

LITTLE MITCHELL GOES TO BOSTON 



N. 



O doubt Little Mitchell was glad 
enough to go to sleep that night in a 
box that stayed still instead of wag- 
gling about as it had done for so long 
a time on the train. 

It was a very hot night, although 
rather late in the season for such warm 
weather in Hartford. It was so warm 
that the lady did not like to shut Little 
Mitchell up in his box, even though it 
had so many holes in it. So she left 
the cover off, and just before going to 
bed she looked in to see how he was 
getting along. 

Well, there he lay, on his back, with 
his head resting on the edge of the 
box and his arms up over his head, for 

152 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

all the world like a hot, tired, human 
little baby. 

He looked so cunning that the lady 
called some of her friends to see 
him ; but by that time the light had 
waked him up, and he stretched and 
yawned and curled up after the usual 
fashion of squirrels when they go to 
sleep. 

He was up bright and early next 
morning, racing about the room, play- 
ing hide-and-seek with the lady under 
the bed-clothes, and having a grand 
time. 

The lady's friend thought his little 
box too close and small for him, and 
gave him a nice large basket ; but he 
did not like to sleep in that at all, and 
cried and scratched so when he was 
put in to take a nap that the lady let 
him out. And then what do you think 
he did ? 

Why, he ran straight to his own 

153 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

little box and crept in and curled up 
and went to sleep there. 

But first he made a visit into the 
big world. He went into the sitting- 
room, where there were ever so many 
tables and chairs for him to examine, 
and, best of all, a wide couch with 
many big soft pillows on it; and behind 
these pillows he would hide, and jump 
out at anybody's fingers that came that 
way, — for all the world like a playful 
kitten. 

He had a fine time playing with the 
lady's friends behind the pillows ; and 
finally he climbed up the nice soft coat 
which her friend the gentleman who 
lived there had on, and got into his 
coat-pocket, and would not come out. 
It was cosey and dark there, and he 
liked it ; and when anybody put in a 
hand to take him out, he would scream 
and nip at their fingers. 

And this, my dears, was not playing 

154 




Little Mitchell Plats with his Tail 

It was funny to see him hanging by his hind toes from his screen, 
head downward, and play with his tail." (Page 174) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

at all, — it was real genuine naughti- 
ness ; for when he played he was care- 
ful never really to nip anybody, — he 
only made believe, you know. 

Well, the gentleman who lived there 
let him stay in his pocket until he was 
ready to go down town ; then he called 
the lady, and she put in her hand, 
and Little Mitchell jumped at it and 
growled, but when he found whose 
hand it was he did not nip at all, — 
he would no more hurt his lady than 
he would hurt himself, no matter how 
naughty he felt. 

Well, the lady wanted to go away 
for a little while ; so she put him into 
his box, — which was not an easy mat- 
ter, for as fast as she got him in one 
side he squirmed out at the other, 
and screamed, and was very naughty 
indeed. 

Finally she got him in, and fastened 
the cover; but he acted so that she 

156 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

finally took him out and fastened him 
into the basket. 

When she got back, what do you 
think ? Little Mitchell was not in the 
basket! He had gnawed a naughty 
great hole right through the pretty 
new basket, and had got out and was 
hiding in the closet in the folds of a 
dress that was hanging there. 

The next time he was missing, some- 
body found him among the papers in 
the bottom of a scrap-basket, where he 
sat, jumping at any strange fingers 
that came his way, and nipping them, 
and growling like a bad little bear, 
until his lady came and fished him 
out, screaming and squirming, but not 
nipping. 

Why do you suppose the gentle, 

timid little Baby Mitchell had all at 

once become such a naughty, self-willed 

squirrel 1 

What shall I do with him ? thought 
157 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

the lady. She was afraid he would 
gnaw her friend's furniture, and do all 
sorts of mischievous things ; so when- 
ever she was not there to take care of 
him, she had to keep him shut up in 
his little box, which was fast getting 
to be too small for him. 

One morning, as he sat on the 
window-sill eating a nut, he had a 
visit. 

Along came a big reddish yellowish 
squirrel, as large as a full-grown gray 
one, but all fluffy, — a very hand- 
some, afraid-of-nobody sort of fellow, 
who sat on the window-sill on the 
other side of the wire screen, and 
looked in at Little Mitchell. 

How do you suppose Little Mitchell 
received this pretty visitor? He just 
dropped his nut with a squeal, and 
scampered off as if the old cat were 
after him, and went and hid in the 
corner under the table. 

158 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

You wouldn't consider that very 
good manners, would you ? But then, 
you see, he was really only a baby, 
and had not yet learned how to be- 
have. 

There were a great many squirrels 
about the lady's friend's place. The 
grounds were large, with fine big trees 
and wide lawns, — just the kind of 
place squirrels like, for nobody can 
shoot them there, and they know it. 

So all about were squirrels, — little 
red fellows, and big gray fellows, and 
once in a while a big, tawny fluffy 
fellow such as came to visit Little 
Mitchell. Well, these squirrels played 
a great deal, scampering about the 
lawn and racing over the branches of 
the trees, which made bridges for them 
high up in the air. And oh, how they 
would jump ! It was enough to make 
one dizzy to look at them. 

But when the chestnuts that grew 

159 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

on the big trees back of the house 
were ripe, then was the time of joy for 
all these squirrels. 

They had their own trouble in get- 
ting their share of the nuts, — what 
with the boys and all the other people 
who wanted them, — but you may be 
sure the squirrels got more than any- 
body else. 

There were so many squirrels hunt- 
ing for nuts ! — and I am sorry to say 
they were not all as honest as they 
might have been. 

The little red squirrels were the 
quickest, and got the most nuts; but 
they didn't keep the most, because 
there were those rascally gray squirrels, 
which were nimble-witted if tbiey were 
not nimble-footed. 

You know what the squirrels do 
with their nuts. They hide them. 
If they do not find a good place in a 
hollow tree or somewhere, then they 

160 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

just dig a little hole and bury the nut 
in the ground. 

One day Little Mitchell's lady was 
sitting by a window that looked out on 
the lawn at the back of the house, and 
this is what she saw. 

Along came a little red squirrel with 
a nut in his mouth. He dug a hole in 
the ground with his little paws, very 
fast indeed. Then he tucked the nut 
in, covered it up, and patted the dirt 
and grass all down nice and smooth 
over it. 

This done, he scampered off and 
got another nut and buried it in the 
same way, and then another and 
another, until he had planted quite a 
space with his nuts. Then off he went, 
and I am sure you could not have found 
one of those nuts, he had hidden them 
so cleverly, patting the earth and grass 
down over them, so that the places 

where they were did not show at all. 

ll 161 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

But if you could not have found 
them, there was somebody else who 
could. 

The little red squirrel had no sooner 
hidden his last nut and gone off, than 
along came a big gray squirrel. Hop, 
hop, he came, his nose to the ground. 
Then he stopped, and began to dig 
very fast with his hands, and — pop ! 
— out came one of the nuts the little 
red squirrel had so carefully hidden ! 

Then the big gray mischief bounded 
off to the other side of the lawn, where 
he dug a hole and buried that nut! 
His hole was deeper, — very likely too 
deep for the little red fellow to get his 
nut again, though I am not sure about 
that. But, anyway, the gray squirrel 
dug up all the poor little red fellow's 
nuts, and went off and hid them, one 
by one, somewhere else. * 

The lady sat at the window and 
watched this mischief. Then the gray 

162 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

squirrel sprang up a tree and went 
tearing across the grove chattering 
like mad. 

No, not because he felt so proud of 
what he had done, but because a blue- 
jay was after him. 

There were blue-jays in the grove, 
too, and they were always tormenting 
the squirrels, chasing them and scream- 
ing at them as though they meant to 
do all sorts of things to them. 

Little Mitchell did not see these 
things going on among his kinsfolk, 
because he would have nothing to do 
with any other squirrels. He would 
not even look at them ; and if one 
came near the window where he was, 
he always scampered off and hid. 

One day the lady took Little 
Mitchell down town with her. He 
was in his little box, you know, because 
she could not quite trust him to go 
without it. She was afraid he would 

163 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

jump on somebody's back, or do some- 
thing dreadful on the electric car ; so 
she shut him up in his box, and took 
him along. 

You could n't guess where they went! 

It was to the photographer's, to see 
if he could take Little Mitchell's pic- 
ture. The man said he would try. 

They put Little Mitchell up on a 
stand ; but he would n't stay. They 
did everything they could think of, 
but it was of no use, — he would n't 
keep still one second. 

At last the lady sat down, and 
tried to coax him to sit still with her ; 
but he wouldn't do that, either. He 
jumped up on her shoulder, and cocked 
his tail up over his head, — it was 
quite a tail by this time, — and peeped 
out at the photographer, and at the 
queer box with a glass eye that kept 
pointing at him. The photographer 
snapped, the way they do when they 

164 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

take a picture ; but Little Mitchell was 
too quick for him, and gave his tail a 
flirt that spoiled the picture. 

Then the photographer got all ready 
again ; but this time, just as he was 
about to take the picture, Little 
Mitchell jumped up on his lady's head, 
— and that, of course, would n't do. 

So they got all ready again, with 
Little Mitchell sitting on his lady's 
knee ; but again he flirted off, just in 
time to spoil the picture. 

Then he climbed up on his lady's 
arm, and the photographer whistled, 
and Little Mitchell cocked up his tail 
and his ears, — just as you see him in 
the picture, — and listened, and in a 
trice the man had pressed the bulb 
and the restless Little Mitchell had 
his picture taken after all. Whether 
it was a success or not, you can decide 
for yourself; for it is the frontispiece 
to this very book. 

165 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

When the lady was ready to go, she 
could not find Little Mitchell. That 
is because he was in the photographer's 
pocket. He had climbed in there to 
hide away after the excitement of hav- 
ing his picture taken ; and at last the 
photographer laughed, for he knew the 
little rascal was there all the time, and 
hauled him out, squirming and protest- 
ing, and handed him to the lady. 

In a few days she was ready to go on 
to Boston ; and she said she would be 
glad to get there, so as to have a suit- 
able place for Little Mitchell, where he 
would not have to be shut up so much 
and yet could not get into mischief. 

So they said good-bye to the Hart- 
ford friends, and started for Boston, 
Little Mitchell in his little box, which 
he did not like at all. 

They had their lunch on the train, 
and Little Mitchell's lunch was chest- 
nuts and chinkapins, which he ate 

166 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

sitting in the corner of the seat next 
the window. But his lady had some 
very dainty sandwiches, made of thin 
slices of bread and batter with cream 
cheese between. 

Presently Little Mitchell smelled 
the lady's lunch, and it smelled better 
than his own ; so he threw down his 
nut and ran up on her arm and tried 
to take her sandwich away from her. 

She said no, for she feared it might 
not agree with him ; but he said yes, 
he would have some, and he snatched 
and got a crumb which he crowded 
into his mouth. 

The lady set him down on the seat 
and gave him his nut ; but he threw it 
down, and again snatched at her sand- 
wich. He nearly got it all this time, 
but the lady caught it away just in 
time. Then he began to scream and 
struggle and fight for the sandwich, 

until the people in the car began to 
167 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

laugh, and then the lady gave him a 
little piece, and he sat up very straight, 
eating cheese sandwich and looking as 
solemn as an owl. 

When they neared Boston, there 
was a struggle to get him into his box ; 
for he had decided he wouldn't go. 
But this time he had to ; and the 
minute they got off the train the lady 
drove to a bird-store and got a big 
wire squirrel-cage to take home with 
her. 

As soon as she was in her own room, 
she let Little Mitchell out. Such a 
relief as it was to get him safely there ! 
And such a time as he had getting 
acquainted with his new home ! He 
went all about the room, — over the 
couch, on the table, all through the 
bookcase, and even into the closet 
where the lady hung her dresses. 

Then he helped her to unpack her 

trunk and put everything away. Of 
168 




Little Mitchell Plats with a String 
Across the room and back again he would chase it." (Page 190) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

course the way he helped was to get 
under her feet or her hands and be 
in the way all the time as much as 
possible. 

Then the lady put him in the big 
new cage, and shut the door. He 
walked all around it, and then got into 
the wheel. You know the wire wheel 
that is always in a squirrel-cage % As 
soon as he moved, of course the wheel 
began to turn, and he began to run. 
The faster he ran the faster it turned, 
until he fairly flew. 

At last his legs ached so he could 
run no more, and he stopped, and then 
the wonderful wheel stopped too; but 
as soon as he took a step, it turned 
again. Finally he jumped out ; but in 
a few minutes he went back and tried 
it again. He thought it was splendid 
fun; and so all in a minute, without 
any teaching, Little Mitchell learned 
how to use his play-wheel. 

170 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

The lady stood close by the cage 
and watched him, for she feared he 
might be frightened by it, and if he 
had seemed at all troubled she was 
ready to put in her hand and stop the 
wheel until he gradually learned how 
to use it. 



171 



IX 

LITTLE MITCHELLS HAPPY DAYS 

Little Mitchell was a very happy 
squirrel in his Boston home. His 
lady's room had a large bay-window 
in the end, that looked out over the 
tops of the houses and away off up the 
beautiful Charles River ; and there was 
a large platform, almost like a little 
room, in the bay-window, and here, by 
the side of the writing-table, stood his 
cage. Its door was always open when 
the lady was at home, and he had glo- 
rious frolics all about the big room. 

He climbed everywhere, but the 
best fun was racing over the Japanese 
screen. The lady had no tree for him 
to climb, so she gave him the screen 
to play with ; and up and down it he 

172 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

would go, now this side, now that. 
But he had the best time biting the 
eyes out of the birds on the screen and 
unravelling the embroidery. 

Then he would sit up on top of the 
screen and gnaw away at the wooden 
frame. You see, when he was spoiling 
the screen he was not spoiling any- 
thing else ; and as he liked the screen 
better than anything else, his lady said 
he might as well eat it up if he wanted 
to, so she gave it to him. 

It was very funny to see him go up 
the side of the screen, which stood up- 
right, you know, like the wall of a 
house. His claws were as sharp as a 
cat's, and he would hold on by his 
front feet, and jump up with his hind 
feet and get a new hold with his front 
ones, and so on. He looked as though 
he went hopping up the screen. And 
it was funnier still when he came down 

head-first. 

173 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

But funniest of all was to see him 
hang by his hind toes, head down, and 
play with his tail ! He was very fond 
of playing with his tail, and when he 
was on the floor he would often chase 
it just as a kitten does. It was a fine 
tail by this time, long and bushy ; and 
when he got excited he would fluff it 
out until it looked like a real grown-up 
squirrel's tail. 

But talking of tails, the most out- 
rageously funny thing Little Mitchell 
ever did was to roll himself up into a 
ball, with his tail hugged in his arms 
and held between his teeth, then go 
over and over, like a ball, from one 
end of the platform to the other. 

The first time the lady saw him, she 
was rather startled, — she could not 
imagine for a moment what that queer 
soft-looking ball was, rolling so fast 
about the platform. How she did laugh 
when she saw that it was only Little 

174 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

Mitchell amusing himself! She had 
never seen a squirrel or anything else 
act like that before. 

He was so funny playing about the 
room, hanging by his toes from the 
screen and rolling around like a ball, 
that the lady could do nothing but 
watch him when he was out of the 
cage. She said he wasted all her time ; 
and he certainly did waste a great deal 
of it. 

The first thing in the morning, he 
had to be fed and given a drink of fresh 
water. He ate all sorts of nuts now, 
but he would not crack the hard ones 
himself. The lady used to bring home 
any nice new nuts that she saw when 
she was out, and Little Mitchell was 
always on hand to open her parcels. 
He enjoyed opening them as much as 
you do when your mother comes home 
from shopping. If he found nuts, he 
would get into the bag and paw them 

175 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

all over, and at last run off with one. 
If there were no nuts, he would sniff 
at everything, and then go off, though 
sometimes he found something he liked 
to play with in the parcels. 

When he was hungry, he insisted 
on sitting upon the lady's knee to 
eat his nuts. Of course he could sit 
up as well as anybody now, and hold 
the nut in his funny little hands. 
Some people would say paws ; but if a 
squirrel has not hands, then nobody 
has. Just watch one take a nut and 
turn it over and over with those hands, 
and filially hold it firmly between those 
ridiculous little nubbins that are his 
thumbs, while he gnaws it. And then 
watch him comb his- tail with his 
fingers, and wash his face with his 
hands, and catch your watch-chain 
when you dangle it in front of him. 
Only, you see, he always uses both 
hands at once. At least Little Mitchell 

176 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

did, for the lady never saw him take 
anything in one hand alone. And he 
did not pick up things with his hands, 
— he picked up his nuts with his 
mouth, and then took them in his 
hands. 

Did n't he crack any of his nuts him- 
self? Oh yes, indeed, he cracked the 
almonds and beech-nuts, and such soft- 
shelled ones, as cleverly as you could 
have done it yourself. But when it 
came to hickory nuts and filberts, he 
wouldn't even try to crack them; he 
would go and poke them into his lady's 
hand for her to crack, or else he would 
hide them away. 

He knew perfectly well, when she 
got out the little hammer, that she was 
going to crack his nuts, — and a hard 
time she had not to crack his nose too, 
for he insisted upon poking it under 
the hammer, to see how the nuts were 
getting on, I suppose. 
12 177 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

Peanuts % Oh, lie would n't touch a 
peanut, — not if he were ever so hun- 
gry. He would n't open one, and he 
wouldn't eat it if the lady opened it for 
him. No, — he would n't look at pea- 
nuts. But he would eat beech-nuts until 
you wondered where in the world he 
put them all. And pecan nuts he liked 
almost as well, only of course the lady 
had to crack them for him. 

He knew a good nut from a bad one, 
too, before opening it. You could be 
very sure that if he threw down a beech- 
nut or an almond without trying to 
open it, there was nothing fit to eat 
inside. How he knew, I cannot tell; 
but the rascal did know. I suppose it 
was some of that squirrel wisdom that 
kept coining to him as he grew older. 

He used to drink from a tumbler in 
those days ; but he would not take it 
between his lips, as he used to take the 

spoon. He would stand up, holding on 

178 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

to the edge with his hands, and then 
drink, making a great noise while doing 
it. It was just the way children some- 
times drink when they are naughty ; 
but he was not naughty, — he did n't 
know any better, and it was all so cun- 
ning his lady did not try to teach him. 

She made up her mind, though, that 
she would teach him a great many 
things, he was so gentle and affection- 
ate and intelligent. 

But he zoas something of a nuisance 
about wasting her time. For one 
thing, she had to brush his coat every 
morning; and he would sit quite still 
to have his head and ears brushed. 
He would turn his head first one side, 
then the other, so that his ears could 
be brushed all around and back of 
them, inside and out. But as soon 
as his ears were washed, he thought 
that was enough, and that it was time 
for some fun ; so he would catch hold 

179 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

of the brush and bite it, and kick at it 
with his hind feet like a kitten playing, 
and when the lady scolded him he 
would sit still for about a second, then 
he would snatch at the brush again, or 
maybe suddenly fly off from her knee 
and across the room. But she always 
brought him back, and made him stay 
until his fur was nicely brushed from 
the tip of his nose to the tip of his 
tail. 

The tail was the hardest to fix. How 
he would act when she got to his tail! 
He knew it was time for some fun then, 
and he would jerk the brush out of his 
lady's hand, and run away with it in his 
mouth, and when she caught him and 
took it away he would catch hold of his 
tail and begin to comb it very fast him- 
self with his hands and his front teeth. 

Did he ever get over crying when 
his mouth was wiped ? Oh no, after 
every drink of water he screamed in 

180 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

the - same naughty way if the lady 
wiped his mouth. He much preferred 
springing upon her and wiping it very 
hard on the front of her dress. I sup- 
pose he thought laces and ribbons 
were made for squirrels to wipe their 
faces on ! 

But he did love his lady. He did 
not want to be away from her a mo- 
ment. Sometimes, when he ran across 
the front of her waist to get to her 
shoulder, she would drop a little kiss 
on his furry coat as he passed. Then 
what would he do ? Run on without 
noticing it ? Oh no ; he would stop 
for just the fraction of a second, and 
give one soft touch of his little vel- 
vety tongue to her cheek, and then 
race on again. 

Sometimes he would lick her hands 
like a little dog ; and if she was busy, 
he could n't possibly let her alone. If 
she was writing, he would take hold 

182 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

of the pen and shake it, and bite at her 
fingers, and turn somersaults in her 
lap, and caper so she could n't do a 
thing but stop and play with him, as 
though he were a little monkey. 

He liked to have her tousle him 
about, as you do a kitten, upside 
down, and tickling his little white neck 
and chest with her fingers ; and he 
would make believe bite, and really 
scratch just like a kitten. You see, 
his little claws were as sharp as any 
cat's claws; and though he did not 
mean to hurt her at all, he scratched 
her hands all over until they were a 
sight to see. Then she had to stop 
playing that way, and instead she took 
a long lead-pencil, and he would bite 
at that and catch it in all four of his 
feet, and hang from it like a sloth, 
back down, and she would swing him 
back and forth, as though he were a 
hammock suspended from the ends of 

183 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

the pencil. He thought that was great 
fun, and so did the lady D 

As to sewing, she could n't do a bit 
of it if he was out of his cage, for he 
insisted upon helping, and caught hold 
of the thread and tangled it all up. It 
was such fun to see the lady's hands 
go back and forth, that he would 
jump at them, and she was afraid that 
she would stick the needle into his 
nose or his eye. With the scissors it 
was even worse ; she could n't so much 
as snip a thread without running the 
risk of clipping something off him, — 
one of his feet, or his nose, or the end 
of his tail. He seemed to be all over 
everything at once. 

Of course she could have shut him 
up in his cage, but she did n't like to do 
that, it made him so unhappy. He 
would shake the cage door, and bite at 
it, and do everything he could think 
of to coax her to let him out. 

184 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

Of course he wasn't bothering her 
every minute, though when he was not 
playing with her she had to keep sharp 
watch of him, for she never knew what 
he might do next, excepting when he 
was taking a sun-bath on the platform. 
For when the sun flooded the big- 
windows, nice and warm, he would 
flatten himself out on the floor, and 
stretch first one leg, then another, 
and finally he would open his mouth 
and yawn, and show his four front 
teeth, two above and two below, that 
looked very long and sharp. 

For that is the way the squirrel-folk 
have their teeth, — two long, sharp 
ones in the front of the upper jaw, and 
two opposite them in the front of the 
lower jaw. These teeth are like little 
chisels, and it is with them they gnaw 
wood so easily. Not that they have 
only four teeth, — they have others, 
away back in the mouth, that look 

185 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

something like our back teeth, and are 
used for the same purpose — to chew 
the food. 

Well, when Little Mitchell went to 
take a sun-bath, the lady was glad, you 
may be sure ; for then she knew he 
would be out of mischief for a little 
while. But it did not last long. He 
was soon up and off to see what he 
could do next. 

He had soon collected a number of 
things to play with. If the lady missed 
any little thing, she was always sure 
who had run away with it. His pet 
plaything at this time was a little white 
envelope that had had a visiting-card 
in it. He fished the envelope out of 
the scrap-basket and carried it about 
for a long time, and then hid it away 
under the corner of a sofa pillow. He 
was always hiding his things, and the 
lady was always finding them in the 
queerest places. He used to put nuts 

186 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

in her slippers, and one day lie even 
tried to drop nuts down her back. 
She never knew what she would find 
in the sleeves of her dresses when she 
took them out of the closet. 

At last she collected all his play- 
things that she could find, — the little 
envelope, a big button, a hard cracker, 
a piece of cooky, a small pine-cone, 
three acorns, a worsted ball, and a 
butternut, — and put them in a little 
basket on the bureau. Very soon, you 
may be sure, Little Mitchell found 
them. The first thing his lady knew, 
he was sitting on the very corner of the 
bureau, with his cracker in his hands, 
nibbling it. Then he took a taste of 
the cooky ; next he hauled out the little 
envelope, and had a joyous time haul- 
ing everything out of the basket. 
What do you think he did next 1 
To the lady's great astonishment, he 
put them all back again ! 

187 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

He took the greatest fancy to the 
little basket; and ever after, when he 
took his things out of it, he put at 
least part of them back again. He 
seemed to think they were safely 
hidden there. 

He had such a hard time hiding 
things ! All his extra nuts he wished 
to bury ; for that is the way with the 
squirrel-folk, you know, and though 
Little Mitchell had never seen a squir- 
rel bury anything, he could not get 
over wanting to do it. His favorite 
place, next to the folds of the lady's 
dress, was the deer-skin that lay on 
the platform. It was a beautiful skin 
from his own mountains, where the 
deer still run wild. 

But the hair on a deer is short and 
stiff; so there was not much chance to 
hide anything in it. Yet how Little 
Mitchell did try ! He would hold in 
his mouth the nut to be buried, while 

188 




Little Mitchell Listens to the Whistle 

He would climb up on the screen, and there he would stay, as still 

a mouse." (Page 197) 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

he dug very fast indeed with his hands, 

— that is, he went through the motions 
of digging, for of course he could n't 
dig a hole in the deer-skin. 

When he had dug long enough, he 
would poke the nut down under the 
hair on the skin, and then pat it all 
down nicely on top. Only when he 
got through there was the nut in plain 
sight ! Poor little chap ! He would 
try again and again, and at last give 
the nut a good patting, and scamper 
off. He often succeeded in getting the 
nuts out of sight under the hair ; and 
a funny skin it was to walk over then, 
all hubbly with hard nuts ! 

Another trick was to hide the nuts 
all over his lady as she sat reading, and 
when she got up a perfect shower of 
nuts would rattle out upon the floor. 

You should have seen the little fel- 
low play with a ball tied to a string ! 

— across the room and back again, 

190 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

around and around he would chase it, 
just like a kitten. But he was ever so 
much quicker and funnier than a kit- 
ten, and prettier, too, with that bushy 
tail of his flirting and curving about. 

You see how it was, — he had no- 
body but his lady to play with, and 
he just had to play; so he learned all 
sorts of funny little tricks that squirrels 
in the woods, who have each other to 
chase and who have to put away their 
winter stores, have no time for. 

Do you know how he learned to sit 
in the doll's chair? 

The lady got a little wooden chair 
and table to give to a little girl ; but 
before she gave them away she thought 
she would see if she couldn't teach 
Little Mitchell to sit in the chair. So 
she let him get quite hungry one day ; 
then she put him in the chair with one 
hand while she gave him a nice cracked 
nut with the other. 

191 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

He was so eager to eat his nut that 
he never moved ! She drew the table 
up in front of him, with some nuts and 
a little red apple lying on it, and Little 
Mitchell sat there like a well-behaved 
child and ate his supper. He soon 
got used to it, and if he felt like it 
he would sit still in the tiny rocking- 
chair and eat his nuts ; but sometimes 
he would jump up and tip over the 
chair, table, and everything else. 

He liked apples. He liked to have 
a whole one, so he could roll it around 
and play with it. You should have 
seen him try to hold it in his hands like 
a nut ! When he found he could n't, 
he would crouch down close to it and 
gnaw a hole in the skin. But don't 
imagine he would swallow the skin ! 
He would n't, not a bit ! He flung it 
away, as he did the nut-shells, and ate 
the soft pulp inside. 

He did not often get a whole apple, 

192 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

because the lady did not like to have 
the bits of skin thrown about the floor. 
You see, he would go to work and peel 
half the apple before he took a bite. 
He seemed to do this for fun ; but he 
never picked up the little pieces of skin 
he flung about. 

But much as he liked apples, he 
liked grapes better ; and these he could 
hold in his hands. He looked very 
pretty, sitting up with his bushy tail 
showing above his head and a big yel- 
low California grape in his hands. 



13 193 



X 

LITTLE MITCHELL MAKES A MISTAKE 

.Little Mitchell did not allow any- 
body to touch him except his lady; 
and he would not eat for any one else. 
He would not even make friends with 
the other people in the house, — but 
that may be because he did not see 
enough of them. 

One day the lady heard no sound 
from him for a long time, and she be- 
gan to look around for him ; but Little 
Mitchell was gone! She looked all 
about the room, — no Little Mitchell. 
In his cage, — no Little Mitchell. In 
the closet, where the dresses hung, — 
no Mitchell. She shook the dresses to 
see if he had not gone to hide in them 
and fallen asleep, — no Little Mitchell. 

194 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

Then she called him, — not a sound. 
Finally she went out into the hall and 
looked for him, for the door was open, 
— but still no Little Mitchell. 

Then she went into the room of her 
next neighbor, who was a newspaper 
editor and not at home, but whose 
door was open ; and there, in the mid- 
dle of the floor, looking about him 
to see what to go at first, sat Little 
Mitchell ! 

The rascal ! As soon as the lady 
came he made a dive for the hall and 
scampered home ; for she had told him 
he must not go near the open door, 
and had scolded him so often for doing 
it that he knew perfectly well he ought 
not to do it. 

Yes, indeed, — he knew when he 
was scolded, and scolding was usually 
enough ; though once or twice the 
lady had spatted him, — not hard, you 
know, not hard at all ; but it almost 

195 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

broke his heart, he was such a sensitive 
little thing. 

The first time it happened he had 
done something very naughty, and he 
knew it was naughty too. The lady 
caught him up and cuffed him ever so 
little ; but she was dreadfully frightened 
when the little fellow stiffened out as 
though he were dead, and lay perfectly 
still for ever so long. But he never did 
the naughty thing again. 

The only other time he got slapped 
was when his lady's friend put out her 
hand to touch him. He was sitting 
on his lady's knee, and he deliberately 
reached out and bit the visitor's finger. 
Yes, he really bit it so that a drop of 
blood came. 

That was naughty, and he knew it ; 
and his lady slapped him a little, and 
said, "No, no, Mitchell!" very crossly, 
and he jumped away, his tail all fluffy, 
and ran as fast as he could and tucked 
196 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

his head up her sleeve as far as he 
could get it. 

Perhaps the reason why he went to 
the editor's room was because that was 
where the singing came from, and he did 
enjoy hearing anybody sing! When 
the editor was at home, he used to sing 
a great deal ; and Little Mitchell would 
climb up on the screen which stood in 
front of the open door, and lean his 
head away down, and cock his ear to 
listen, and there he would stay as still 
as a mouse as long as the editor sang 
or whistled. 

One day he really went visiting. 
His lady took him to a friend's house 
one night just as they were finishing 
dinner, and she was invited to have 
some of the ice-cream. 

She had Little Mitchell buttoned 

up under her jacket ; but as soon as 

the ice-cream came along he put in an 

appearance and wanted his share, which 
197 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

he ate very nicely out of a spoon, to 
the amusement of all who saw him. 

After dinner, when they were all 
together in the sitting-room, one of 
the young men — who was a Harvard 
student, and knew more about many 
other things than he did about squirrels 
— said Little Mitchell did not really 
know the lady, but would just as soon 
go to anybody else if he were left 
alone. 

So all the family — eight or nine, 
counting the visitors — formed a circle, 
and the lady set Little Mitchell down 
in the middle, and then quickly stepped 
back behind him to a new place in the 
circle. 

Little Mitchell's bushy tail jerked 
nervously for a minute, and his bright 
eyes looked wildly from one strange 
face to another; then he gave a leap 
and landed at his lady's feet, and in 
another second was up on her shoulder. 

198 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

After that, no one denied that he 
knew his lady, and liked her best of 
all. 

He had to take an airing once in a 
while, and the way he went was to 
ride in his own private carriage, — 
which was nothing less than the inside 
of his lady's jacket. She would button 
it all but the two top buttons, and 
tuck him in, and away they would go 
for a walk or a romp together. 

Little Mitchell thought this great 
fun, and usually gave no trouble. 
Sometimes they walked along the 
street, when Little Mitchell would 
pop his head out and look about, but 
if anybody came along he would pop 
it back again. 

Sometimes they went to the Public 
Garden ; and here he had many ad- 
ventures. One day his lady thought 
she would let him climb a tree. So 
she chose a little one, put him on one 

. 199 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

of the lower limbs, and then stepped 
back. Little Mitchell looked about, 
but did not climb ; he took two or 
three steps, then I suppose he de- 
cided it was an awful thing to be left 
there alone on a wild little tree in a 
wild park that stood in a wild world 
that he knew nothing about; so he 
gave one tremendous jump and landed 
on his lady's shoulder, and scurried 
down into his safe hiding-place under 
her jacket, and peeped out at the ter- 
rible tree and the strange world he 
was so afraid of. 

Then she put him on the grass, and 
went on ; but Little Mitchell went on 
too, and in less time than it takes to 
tell he had caught her and come fly- 
ing up again to his safe place in her 
jacket. 

Sometimes he would come out and 
sit in her hand ; but it seemed a very 
dangerous world to a squirrel who had 

200 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

never been out of doors, — and so it 
was, for did not a little girl come up 
to look at him one day and suddenly 
grab him in both hands ? But how 
quick she let go ! He squealed his 
loudest, and squirmed like an eel, 
and no doubt would have bitten her, 
only she was so frightened that she 
dropped him on the grass. The lady 
quickly stooped down with her hand 
out, and he sprang upon it and ran up 
her arm and hid in her jacket. No 
little girls for him ! 

He liked to have the lady go to a 
lonely part of the Public Garden, and 
sit on a bench, and let him sit beside 
her with a nice pecan nut that had 
been cracked a little so that he could 
open it by working at it awhile. 

You see, he did not crack his own 
nuts, because he did not know how. 
It must be that mother squirrels start 
the nuts for their young ones ; but 

201 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

Little Mitchell's lady did not know 
that, only she saw nuts that the squir- 
rels had gnawed, and there were two 
little holes in the sides opposite each 
other. But Little Mitchell did not 
gnaw the sides of the nut, — he al- 
ways tried to gnaw the end ; and 
you know it would take him forever 
to get at the meat that way. So 
finally the lady started his nuts with 
a penknife in the right place, and 
Little Mitchell would try very hard 
to finish opening them ; but he liked 
much better to have his nuts cracked 
with a hammer, so that he could peel 
off pieces of the shell. 

No doubt he would soon have 
learned to open his nuts himself, and 
do it very well, only something hap- 
pened that made this impossible. It 
is strange he did not know how, he 
knew so many other things the squir- 
rel folk know, but that they had never 

202 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

taught him. You remember he knew 
how to clean himself and wash his 
face in the funny squirrel way. And 
he knew how to talk squirrel talk. 
He had several sounds that meant 
different things. 

The funniest talking he ever did was 
when he saw the dog in the back- 
yard. It was away down below him, 
and not in his yard either, but in 
another yard over the fence. It is 
strange he should have noticed the 
dog so far off; but he had good eyes, 
had Little Mitchell, — and the way he 
screamed and scolded when he saw the 
dog ! You never heard anything like 
it, — unless you have been scolded 
by a gray squirrel out in the woods 
sometime ! 

He was sitting looking out of the 
big window, when the little dog ran 
across the yard. Up went Little 
Mitchell's hands across his breast, in 

203 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

the most comical manner, as though 
he were pressing them over his fast- 
beating heart. Then he stretched his 
neck, and opened his mouth wide, and 
screamed at the dog. The way he 
screamed when his mouth was wiped 
was nothing to this. How he did go 
on ! — just as the gray squirrels in the 
woods do when they are very much 
excited ; and he had never heard a 
squirrel do it in all his life. 

There were gray squirrels on Boston 
Common, where Little Mitchell some- 
times went to walk with the lady ; but 
he did not take the slightest interest 
in them. 

There are more squirrels on the 
Common sometimes than others. The 
winter Little Mitchell was in Boston 
there were several of them living on 
the Common, and they had nests in 
some of the trees. Yes, they built 
nests that looked like big clumsy 

204 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

bird's-nests, and they went into them 
to sleep and to keep warm, 

One cold winter day, when Little 
Mitchell's lady was crossing the Com- 
mon early in the morning, and Little 
Mitchell was not with her, a big gray 
squirrel ran up to her and asked for a nut. 
Of course he could not ask in people's 
talk, but he asked very plainly in squir- 
rel talk, — in their sign language. He 
made no sound, but signed for nuts in 
the prettiest way, running close up to 
her, flatting out a little toward the 
ground, and looking up into her face as 
Little Mitchell looked when he was 
coaxing for something. The lady had 
no nuts with her; but she brought 
some when she came that way again. 
Then she found somebody else had 
given him nuts, and he was sitting 
on the ground eating them. Of course 
this squirrel did not pass the winter in 
a nest in the branches of a tree. Oh, 

205 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

no, he had a nice warm hiding-place 
inside a big tree that had a hole in the 
crotch so that he could get in. 

Once there were a great many squir- 
rels on the Common, but one day there 
were none. They had all gone off. 
What had become of them % everybody 
was asking. The policeman knew, for 
he saw them go. It was very early in 
the morning, and they went all to- 
gether, single file, across Cambridge 
bridge. They were on the bridge rail- 
ing, one old fellow leading the way. 
Perhaps there were getting to be too 
many of them to be comfortable on the 
Common. Perhaps they were tired of 
city life. Anyway, the policeman saw 
them go, and that was the end of the 
squirrels on the Common for some time. 
At least, so I was told. 

A good many city parks have gray 
squirrels in them, but where else are 
they so tame as in the park at 

206 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

Richmond, Virginia ? Little Mitchell's 
lady was there one day, before she 
had found Little Mitchell, and the 
squirrels were so tame they came 
right up and ate out of her hand ; 
and when she stooped down to speak 
to one, another little fellow raced right 
up her back, — which rather startled 
her, because she was not used to 
squirrels then. 

Well, Little Mitchell grew fast, and 
promised to become a very large and 
handsome squirrel, when he made a 
dreadful mistake one day and licked 
the heads of the matches. He got 
into the match-box somehow, — he 
was always opening boxes to see what 
was in them, — and he liked the taste 
of the matches, never suspecting what 
sad results would follow. 

The lady looked about at last to see 
what he was up to, — for if he was 

quiet more than a minute at a time 

207 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

it meant mischief. How she jumped 
when she saw what he was doing! 
But it was too late, and little Mitchell 
tumbled over then and there, and the 
lady thought he was dead ; but he 
was not. 

He appeared to get over it and be 
perfectly well again ; and the lady — 
who did not know as much about 
phosphorus poisoning then as she was 
soon to learn — thought nothing was 
to come of it. You see, phosphorus 
is the stuff on the ends of matches 
that makes them light ; and it is poi- 
son, — and a mean, horrible poison 
too. 

Little Mitchell played about as 
usual for a few days, rolling like a ball 
on the platform, racing over the screen, 
and tormenting the lady when she 
wanted to work. Then one morning 
he was frightfully sick and he stayed 
sick all day. He sat hunched up on 

208 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

the couch, making queer, mournful 
little noises, and eating nothing. 

He could not even bear the gentle 
touch of the lady's hand, and screamed 
if she came near him, he was so afraid 
she would touch him. So she left 
him to himself, and went to the doc- 
tor and asked about it, and the doctor 
told her what to do. There was not 
very much she could do then, but 
keep him warm and wait. 

For two or three days Little Mitchell 
was a very sick squirrel; but then he 
began to get better again, and soon 
was running about almost as well as 
ever, — but not quite. He seemed 
weak, and could not use his hind legs 
as well as usual. But he was still 
very cunning and lively, and as affec- 
tionate as ever. 

While he was sick, the lady let him 
sleep under the corner of her travel- 
ling rug instead of in his cage ; and 
u 209 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

when he got better he still wanted to 
sleep in the rug. He would creep in 
to take a nap in the daytime, and at 
night he teased so to stay that the lady 
yielded at last, and fixed him a bed on 
the floor, at the head of her own couch. 
She doubled a towel in between two 
folds of the rug, for sheets, as it were ; 
but Little Mitchell did not like the 
towel, and would creep in on top of it 
or under it. Then it was pinned down 
so he had to go into it ; and at last 
he got used to it, and always went in 
right, whether it was pinned or not. 

After a few days the lady woke up 
one night and thought she heard him 
making queer noises. She got a light, 
and, sure enough, there he was, as sick 
as ever. But he got over it again, and 
went on for a long time about as usual, 
though his hind legs seemed weaker 
than before. He could scarcely climb 
to the top of his screen, and never raced 

210 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

over it and hung by his toes, as he had 
liked to do. 

He had to take medicine ; but he 
would not touch his drinking water if 
the medicine was put in that, so the 
lady got it in the form of little sugar 
pills. He was very fond of sugar, you 
know, though he was not allowed to 
eat much candy ; and he liked those 
little pills, and was always ready to eat 
one whenever it was given him. 

He liked his flaxseeds, too, at first, 
and would crunch them up, one at a 
time, between his sharp little teeth ; but 
he soon got tired of them, and would 
not eat them unless the lady made him. 
The way she managed was to pour 
some of the seeds in the palm of her 
hand, and give them to him early in 
the morning. If he would not eat 
them, she waited, and after a while 
offered them again ; and not a bit of 
breakfast would he get until he had 

211 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

eaten his flaxseeds. He soon learned 
that he must eat them, and it was funny 
to see him try to get rid of them by 
pawing them out of the lady's hand. 
He would paw them all out into her 
lap ; but she would gather them up 
again, when he would stick in his nose 
very hard, so as to spatter half of them 
out. He would munch two or three, 
looking at her out of his bright eyes ; 
then he would nose around in them 
again, until he had spilled them all out 
into her lap. But again she would 
gather them up, and so they would 
keep on until he had eaten what was 
necessary for him. 



212 



XI 

LITTLE MITCHELL GOES TO SLEEP 

One day Little Mitchell's lady said 
good-bye to him, and went away 
to stay two or three days. He had 
been well now for more than a week, 
so that she did not feel troubled at 
leaving him. 

A friend promised to attend to him 
in her absence ; but this was easier 
said than done. She opened the cage, 
thinking he would come and sit in her 
lap as he did in his lady's. 

Sit in her lap ? Not a bit of it ! 
Nor would he take any nuts from her, 
nor have anything to do with her. As 
soon as he got out of the cage, off he 
scampered, and she could not catch 
him. So she took a book and sat 

213 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

still, hoping lie would return to his 
cage, in which she had laid some nuts. 

Presently she heard a match snap, 
and looking quickly up, saw Little 
Mitchell drop a lighted match and 
scamper off. 

Some one had dropped a match on 
the floor, and poor Little Mitchell had 
found it. This time he gnawed it and 
set it on fire, which made him quickly 
drop it, and thus he did not get so 
much of the poison as before, though 
he burned the whiskers all off the side 
of his face again. It was the same 
side they were burned off before, but 
they had grown out since then. 

He went into his cage at last ; but 
he ate scarcely anything, and was a 
very unhappy little fellow until his 
lady came back to him. You may 
be sure he was glad to see her ! She 
let him out the minute she got into 
the room, and he climbed up and 

214 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

cuddled close to her face, and then 
ran around and around her, — for 
though it was hard for him to climb 
the stiff screen, he could climb up on 
his lady's dress quite easily. He hung 
about her as though he could not bear 
to leave her for a minute, and kept 
this up as long as she stayed in the 
room. 

But the extra taste of phosphorus 
soon had its effect, and next day the 
poor little fellow was sick again. But 
he recovered as before. 

Then he had another misfortune. 
He got his tail skinned. 

His lady had to be gone all one 
day, so she left him in his cage as she 
always did when she went out. When 
she got back, there was poor Little 
Mitchell with the cotton in his nest 
wrapped all tight about his tail. He 
had struggled to get free until his tail 
was all twisted and torn. Oh, but he 

215 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

was glad to see the lady! She did 
not even stop to take off her things 
before she pulled the cotton out of the 
nest, and took Little Mitchell out and 
carefully untwisted the poor tail, from 
which the skin was off for a third of 
its length. You can imagine he was 
a queer-looking fellow then ! But 
the lady took good care of him, and 
bathed the tail every day, and put oil 
on it to make the hair grow. It was a 
pretty sad-looking tail, and she feared 
the hair never would grow on it again ; 
but it did. 

After a while rows of short hairs be- 
gan to come out all along the bare 
spot; and then his tail looked funny 
enough. Do you remember how the 
little scouring rush that grows in 
swampy places looks? Do you re- 
member the rings of stiff little bristles 
all down it? Well, Little Mitchell's 
tail reminded his lady of the scouring 

216 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

rush. The hairs came out in rings, 
a ring of them at each joint ; but they 
grew ever so fast, and in the end that 
part of the tail was almost the hand- 
somest of all ! 

But what a lot of trouble it made for 
both of them, — that tail ! It had to 
be bathed often, — and Little Mitchell 
did hate so to have it put into the 
water. At first, as soon as the water 
touched it he would squirm loose and 
run off, and the lady would catch 
him, and, holding him before her face, 
would talk to him and tell him all 
about it, and that he must be good 
and let her wash it. And then — 
will you believe it ? — Little Mitchell 
would be good, and let her finish wash- 
ing him in the warm soapy water. 

Yes, he had a bath all over once in a 
while with nice warm water. He did n't 
like it very well, though the lady was 
ever so careful not to get the soap in 

217 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

his eyes. But what came after the 
bath, — the rubbing, and the sitting on 
his lady's knee in the warm sun until 
he was perfectly dry, — he liked very 
much indeed. And then, when his 
coat changed, the bath and the rub- 
bing stopped that dreadful itching. 

His baby coat was very soft and fine 
and of the same gray color all over, 
excepting of course on the under side of 
his body, and there it was white. But 
when he was three or four months old, 
he began to change in many curious 
ways. For one thing, there came a 
queer growth under his coat that sur- 
prised the lady very much. When she 
brushed him, instead of a dainty white 
skin under his fur he seemed covered 
with a sort of gray felt. Pretty soon 
this felt got to be a coat of long close 
hair, that was very pretty, and quite dif- 
ferent in coloring from the baby coat, 
which soon began to fall out. That is 

218 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

why he itched so ; the loose hairs tickled 
him, and he was all the time biting and 
scratching himself, so that it was almost 
impossible for the lady to brush him, 
he wriggled about so. 

His new coat was light gray on the 
sides, with a dark stripe down the 
middle of the back ; and there was such 
a pretty reddish brown stripe between 
his gray sides and the pure white on 
the under side of his body. At the 
same time, he got a reddish stripe on 
each side of his face, and his face 
changed its shape, or else the new 
markings made it look changed. You 
see now what was happening, — 
Little Mitchell was no longer a baby. 
He was fast getting to be a handsome 
grown-up squirrel, with all the stripes 
and markings of one. His face seemed 
to shorten up and change in expression, 
— just as people change when they 
grow out of childhood into grown-up 

219 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

men and women. Only their faces 
grow longer instead of shorter. 

It was very pretty to watch these 
changes come over Little Mitchell ; but 
one thing troubled his lady, — as time 
went on he did not get well. He 
would seem pretty well for a long time, 
but the poor little hind legs got weaker 
and weaker. The lady comforted him 
by rubbing them, — they seemed so 
stiff, just as though he were a little old 
man with the rheumatism. He liked 
the rubbing every morning. The lady 
would gently knead the muscles of his 
back, and then of his hind legs, one 
after the other. When she got to the 
leg, he would stick it out straight in 
her hand, it felt so good to have it 
rubbed. 

When she had finished and put. him 
down, he would look up at her and 
nod his head, — which was his way of 
coaxing her to rub him some more.. 

220 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

The rubbing seemed to help the 
little legs, but it did not give them 
strength ; and soon Little Mitchell 
could not climb his screen at all. 
He could climb up the table-cover, 
though, to the table, where he loved 
to poke around among the books and 
papers, — and I am sorry to say he 
would sometimes gnaw at a book- 
cover unless he were watched. 

He could climb up the lady's dress, 
too, quite easily, and get into her lap, 
where he loved to lie stretched out. 
And he could climb up the dresses 
that hung in the closet. The best 
thing there was the woolly wrapper ; 
he used to climb up to the hook it 
hung on, and sit there, and after a 
while slip into the top of the sleeve 
and take a nap. 

One day his lady hung the cuff of 
the sleeve on another hook, and so 
made a fine hammock for him to creep 

221 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

into. He lay there a long while, hav- 
ing the most beautiful time, — and 
what do you suppose he was doing? 
He was pulling the fuzz all off the 
inside of the sleeve ! He did not gnaw 
the cloth at all, — he just amused him- 
self pulling off the fuzz and rolling it 
into balls. 

As Little Mitchell became weaker, 
he would often lie in his little ham- 
mock in the closet half a day at a 
time. And when, finally, he got to 
be too weak to climb even the woolly 
wrapper, the lady would lift him up 
and put him into the sleeve, and he 
would stay there until he wanted to 
come out, when he would get up on 
the hook from which the wrapper 
hung, and wait for the lady to take 
him down. He was very much afraid 
of falling ; so he did not try to climb 
much. He did fall once in a while, 
and it seemed to hurt him dreadfully. 

222 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

But though he had become so weak, 
he was not at all stupid. Even in his 
nest in the dark sleeve, he knew when 
the lady came into the closet. I sup- 
pose it was that wonderful nose of 
his that told him. It did not disturb 
him to have her come, even when she 
brushed against him. It did not seem 
even to wake him up. 

But one day a friend of the lady 
went into the big closet for some- 
thing, and passed Little Mitchell as 
he lay asleep in his hammock. She 
did not touch him at all; but his 
quick little nose must have smelled 
a stranger, and how he did growl 
and scold at her ! She did not know 
what it was at first, and jumped out 
of the closet as though a bear had 
been in there. 

Little Mitchell seldom sat in his 
little chair in those days ; but the 
day when Margaret and George and 

223 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

the baby came to see him, the lady 
set him in his chair before his table 
and gave him a nut. 

You should have seen the children, 
— how pleased they were ! George 
had the j oiliest laugh you ever heard; 
and he was the j oiliest boy, anyway. 
But he was careful about laughing 
out loud, for fear of scaring Little 
Mitchell ; and Margaret was careful 
too. Even the baby was used to 
playing with the kitten without hurt- 
ing it ; so that Little Mitchell was 
perfectly safe with those dear lit- 
tle children, if he had only known 
it. But he did n't know it, — and 
you remember how he felt about 
children. 

Now, what do you think he did ? 
He ate his nut as fast as he could, and 
then he tumbled out of his chair and 
went off to bed ! Yes, he scrambled 
down into his own corner, and crept 

224 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

into his bed — without a good-bye 
look at his pretty visitors. 

As time passed, Little Mitchell grew 
still weaker. The lady again had to 
be away for a day or two, but this time 
she would not leave him in his cage. 
She fixed his corner like a little room, 
— the screen, which he could no longer 
climb, at one end, and the wall opposite 
it. The edge of the platform, upon 
which he could no longer get without 
help, made the third wall, and a box 
the fourth. In the end of his little 
room opposite his bed the lady put a 
little dish of water, some cracked nuts, 
and a bunch of grapes. 

When she returned from her visit, 
she went right away to see how Little 
Mitchell was ; and what do you think ] 
When she touched the rug, which 
you remember was his bed, something 
like a little bear inside growled at 
her! 

15 225 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

It was funny to hear Little Mitchell 
growl. It was like a very mite of a 
bear ; but the lady was not afraid of 
such bears, and boldly put her hand 
right into its den, when the wild bear 
inside gently licked her finger and was 
as glad as could be to see her. 

She took him out and shook out the 
rug, for he had carried his nuts inside, 
but his grapes he had eaten outside 
like a nice, neat little bear. 

He got so at last that he would not 
eat unless he sat in his lady's lap. He 
could not sit up unless she put her 
hand against his back and helped him. 
He would sit in her lap and look up in 
her face while he ate his nuts and 
grapes. 

When he wanted to go to her he 
would get as close as he could and nod 
at her to take him. When he wanted 
anything, he would nod his head at his 
lady, which was his way of saying 

226 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

" Please do it for me," and she gener- 
ally understood what he wanted and 
did it for him. 

As soon as he stopped climbing, his 
toe-nails grew very long and curved, 
and he had not strength to pull them 
out of the couch-cover or the blanket- 
wrapper or his lady's dress, and she 
would have to help him. Sometimes 
he would try to go from the couch to 
the floor, and his toes would catch, 
and there he would hang until the 
lady saw him and jumped to help him 
get loose. 

One day she cut the tips off those 
troublesome nails. Her friends said it 
would spoil him ; but she tried it, and 
he was very comfortable until they 
grew again, when she again very 
carefully cut off the sharp curved 
points, and kept them short enough 
to be out of his way. 

Sometimes when he was on the floor 

227 



II 

LITTLE MITCHELL 

and wanted to get into her lap, he 
would stand in front of her and nod 
his head, when she would reach out her 
foot and he would clamber upon it. 
Then she would raise her foot, and 
he would walk along up to her knee. 
When he wanted to get down from 
her lap, he would reach down with his 
hands, and she would raise her foot 
until he could walk down to it without 
falling ; then she would lower him to 
the floor. 

If he wanted to go from one place 
to another, he just told his lady, — by 
nodding, you know, — and she would 
put out her hand to him. He would 
get upon it and keep still until she 
had carried him to the right place. 
You see, they had got to be such 
friends they understood each other 
very well. 

Sometimes he would slip when try- 
ing to get down from the platform, or 

228 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

from a chair where the lady had put 
him. One day he slipped and caught 
by the edge of the platform, but had 
not strength to pull himself up again. 
The lady did not see him until his 
strength was about gone, and he was 
letting go, and about to get a fall that 
would hurt his poor little crippled 
body; so she said, " Mitchell, holdfast 
a minute more ; hold fast, I 'm coming," 
and put down her work and hurried to 
him. As she spoke, she saw him tighten 
up for another effort, and he held until 
she got to him. 

At last there came a day when the 
poor little fellow could not eat. The 
paralysis that disabled his legs had 
reached the muscles of swallowing; 
and then his lady knew the end had 
almost come. She sat on the platform 
where she had so often sat while Little 
Mitchell sunned himself on her knee, 
and took him gently in her hands. 

229 



LITTLE MITCHELL 

She put one little kiss between his 
ears, — and maybe there were tears 
in her eves. Thus did Little Mitchell 
end his days. 

It is true, he was nothing but a 
squirrel ; but living as he did with 
human beings, developing his intel- 
ligence, suffering, and learning love 
and patience, he seemed very near 
the human life with which his own 
life was spent. 



THE END 



230 



THE SPINNER FAMILY 

By ALICE JEAN PATTERSON 

With many illustrations by Bruce Horsfall. Price, $1.00 net 




ALL wide-awake young people who are attracted by the living things 
about them will find Miss Patterson's simple story very delightful. It 
will open to them a new and fascinating avenue of investigation. The 
structure and habits of the spiders are all but unknown to most of us, and 
we are apt to regard them as objects to be avoided. But her book makes 
an apparently grewsome subject inviting, and will draw them into a new 
field of much interest. Bruce Horsfall, that sympathetic artist of nature, 
has drawn a frontispiece in color, and very many pictures for the text, 
which reveal some of the wonders of the spider's life, and make the narra- 
tive doubly interesting. The whole is within the comprehension of a child, 
and yet is so accurate that it may be trusted to state nothing which the facts 
of science do not warrant. 



For sale by booksellers generally 

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BY MISS MORLEY 



LIFE AND LOVE 

By Margaret Warner Morley. With profuse illus- 
trations by the Author. Price, $1.25. 

MARGARET WARNER MORLEY has written in "Life and Love" a 
book which should be placed in the hands of every young man and 
woman. It is a fearless yet clean-minded study of the development of life 
and the relations thereof from the protoplasm to mankind. The work is 
logical, instructive, impressive. It should result in the innocence of 
knowledge, which is better than the innocence of ignorance. It is a pleas- 
ure to see a woman handling so delicate a topic so well. Miss Morley de- 
serves thanks for doing it so impeccably. Even a prude can find nothing to 
carp at in the valuable little volume. — Boston Journal. 

A SONG OF LIFE 

By Margaret Warner Morley. With profuse illus- 
trations by the Author and by Robert Forsyth. Price, 

$1.25. 

A MOST charmingly instructive book ; and so beautifully explained is 
the great subject of life that the little ones for whom it is intended 
cannot but receive great benefit, while the older ones will also learn much. 
Something of flower life, something of fish life, of frogs and of birds, and a 
chapter on human life, form the subjects of this book, all told in the grace- 
ful manner of a womanly woman whose love for Nature has given her a 
keener insight into Nature's secrets and a greater ability to impart those 
secrets to others with the ease of face-to-face talks than is vouchsafed to 
many people. — Boston Times. 

THE HONEY MAKERS 

By Margaret Warner Morley. With many illus- 
trations by the Author. Price, $1.25. 

UNLIKE Miss Morley's other works, this book is intended for older 
readers. The first part of the book is devoted to the scientific exposi- 
tion of the bee's structure, habits, etc., and it is surprising how much inter- 
est and humor the author has managed to infuse into the subject. The 
second part performs an original and valuable service to literature. To the 
bees more than to any other portion of the animal kingdom has attention 
been devoted by poets and thinkers seeking inspiration, and from this 
wealth of allusion and anecdote Miss Morley has culled the choicest and 
most striking parts. 



For sale by all booksellers 

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MAY 2 1904 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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